"ceg" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 10:52:16 -0500, Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:

Please post back with comments on how the USB WiFi worked out.

I hooked up that Archer T4u today, and I'm not too happy with
it (as Jeff Liebermann had correctly predicted).
http://i.imgur.com/pAc1YYC.jpg

The thing worked, even though the bands were crowded:
http://i.imgur.com/nnZJY0J.jpg

But, the bad is that it's HUGE (way larger than a USB stick)
and as a result, it's a pain to plug in the USB adapter, and,
if *directly* plugged in, it kept getting bumped, causing the
operating system to beep and to lose connectivity momentarily.

Luckily, the manufacturer saw fit to include a usb-extension
cable, which is really the *only* way you'd want the TP-Link
Archer T4U (as you can see in the photo).

However, the good is that while Comcast nominal 45Mbps speeds
were about 30 to 38Mbps down on 2.4GHz (whether I used the
internal 2.4GHz NIC or the external Archer T4U 2.4GHz NIC), the
5GHz speeds were *phenomenally* better at 90Mbps down, which
you can see in the picture below:
http://i.imgur.com/pAc1YYC.jpg

Notice that the *wired* speed coming out the modem was about
90Mbps; and that the wired speed coming out of the back of
the router was similar; so the 5GHz speeds from the external
USB NIC were as good as wired.

The funny thing was that, at this college-friendly atmosphere,
the 5Ghz band was pretty crowded, as compared to the 2.4GHz
band; but I'm not exactly sure how to read this side-by-side
output from my Android WiFi-Analyzer app in the 5GHz bands.
http://i.imgur.com/nnZJY0J.jpg

We had a few of those at my job a number of years back. When using the
extension cord, we'd use Velcro to stick the receiver to a top corner of the
laptop lid. Worked OK like that, and it was out of the way. (Plus my
engineers were less likely to lose it if it was attached to something LOL!)
--
SC Tom