Mohtalim

For Christmas, I decided to get my mother a wireless ethernet card for her laptop. However I know next to nothing about brands or even the technologies involved. So I need those of you who do to tell me which one to buy. If its available on Newegg, that would be a big plus since I'm planning to buy my sister's gift there.

-The laptop has PCMCIA slots. It also has USB slots (not sure if they're 2.0).

-My parent's router supports b and g. I don't know anything else about it, including the brand or model.

-Robustness and reliability of the connection is important. The router is in the basement and probably can't be moved (it acts as a wired router as well). That means (I think) that signal strength won't be ideal.

-Cost and bandwidth are not really important. None of the b/g PCMCIA cards on Newegg are outside of my price range.

PCMCIA is the way to go. I'd focus on g. Cnet has signal strength comparisons. Briefly, don't get Siemens Speedstream, which is what I got. Netgear has a good card, though I've not personally used one. The Intel cards are good, but I think they're mostly OEM cards, not retail. They also tend to be pricey. The Lucent/Orinico cards are good, but older, probably b only.

As long as your parent's router supports the full g standard and not some half-assed prerelease g, it shouldn't matter what model it is.

Don't get a linksys wireless card. The one I got 'free' with a router sucked.

I think it's Proxima Orinocco now or something like that... I have no clue if they're any good anymore, but I doubt they changed the older cards much. If your parents aren't doing much that's bandwidth intensive, just get a b card from netgear or an orinocco. b tends to have better range overall and if your signal strength sux, the g is just going to switch to b anyway.

DO NOT GET A USB WIRELESS ADAPTOR. THEY DON"T HAVE ANTENNAS WORTH A DAMN.