New PC And "N" LAN Internal Card ?

Hello,

Thinking of getting my son a new desktop HP PC for a birthday present.

Presently, on his old PC, he has it connected via an Ethernet cable to a "G" Router.

If I purchase the new PC (thinking a bit of the future) with an internal "N" LAN card,
will the card still work with the present "G" Router via an Ethernet cable ?

If he goes in the future with a wireless connection to the present G router, will it still work ?

Any caveats, etc. with getting the new PC with an N internal card ?

Thanks,
Bob

It is going to work, N is "backwards" compatible with G. These sub-standards have nothing to do with Ethernet, they are used to tell the max. distance between a router and a NIC in a WiFi setup.

"A picture tells more than thousand words", they say, so here's some images:





Kari

It's much more than just wireless distance. The various standards deal primarily with speed. As Kari said it has nothing to do with ethernet itself.

802.11n is indeed downward compatible. If an 802.11n adapter associates with an 802.11g access point or wireless router, it will run at 802.11g speeds. One benefit of 802.11n is increased range, but that range will be determined by the antenna arrangement. 802.11n uses Multiple In Multiple Out (MIMO). MIMO performance depends on how many antennas are used. The more antennas, the higher the speed and possibly range. 802.11n benefits of speed are only obtained when all stations are 802.11n and all have the same antenna arrangements. You hear about 300Mbps and higher for 802.11n, but that's implementations where the adapters are all 802.11n, the access points are 802.11n and all the devices have at least a 2x3 or 3x3 MIMO arrangements.

In your case using an 802.11n adapter in the PC and keeping the existing 802.11g wireless router will get you *some* increased range but it won't be any faster. Increased range may not be dramatic though. It depends on the environment.

Now if you swap the 802.11g wireless router for an 802.11n product, you'll see a more noticeable increase in range *and* speed on the local network (not internet).

RedBirdDad said:

It's much more than just wireless distance. The various standards deal primarily with speed. As Kari said it has nothing to do with ethernet itself.

Click to expand...

Very true. Sorry to "simplify" my answer.

No problem!