# USB LAN Card vs PCI LAN Card?



## CuteSniper22 (Dec 31, 2005)

May I know any difference between USB LAN Card and PCI LAN Card? (Wired or Wireless)

1.What I concern only is the driver support. I heard from my friends, they said no need to download driver for USB Lan card? The OS already built-in the driver, is it true?

2. Performance issue. Any difference on performance?


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

Either one will need a driver. I prefer to use a PCI card over USB if I can.


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## Suncoast (Jul 28, 2009)

I was very unhappy with USB NIC speeds. I did a job where a small companies office was being remodeled. Four identical Dell Optiplex computers and one 2003SB server. Two were setup with Linksys PCI Wireless cards, and two were setup with Linksys wireless USB devices connecting to a wrt54gs. The USB connected computers were VERY slow.


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

USB will use the CPU to manage the data which can be affected by how busy the CPU is. A dedicated card will reduce that bottleneck greatly.


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