I need to get a wireless card for a desktop computer. I was wondering if a PCI card or a USB adapter was more reliable. Distance will not be a concern because the device will be quite close to the router and I won't need maximum speeds. Thanks.

You can go for either. USB adapters are getting much cheaper theese days and you have the advantage of being able to use it on any computer, or pluging it into laptops etc. I have set up 3 PCI wireless cards and they are pretty darn easy to get going. But if I needed another one I probably would go for USB because they can be handy. Your choice! Mattwizz3 : ) Sempron 2600+ @ 2.2GHz 1Gb DDR400 Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe 200GB SATA / 80Gb IDE 256Mb MSI 6800 Ultra

Hmm, handiness is not very important right now. I've read some things online with low opinions with USB adapters and higher reliability with PCI wireless cards. The only problem with the PCI one is the one I'm getting is by some weird other-worldly company, but I hope it will work okay. Otherwise I'd switch over. It would be running (transferring data) almost constantly, and so I'd need something that could handle that. I'm going to be running a computer that will act as a streaming media server when I'm at my university library or computer lab, and I don't have direct access to the Ethernet line, hence the reason I'm looking for a wireless card/usb for the desktop system at home.

HHMMM, Well you will probably have trouble getting it to be a multimedia server transferring lage amounts of data. If I play 1 good quality video file over the network (All wireless) I get little jumps and pauses. This is using 54Mbps wireless cards. Go for a 108Mbps internal card and you might not have as much trouble. Wireless networking is still very slow compared to wired 100Mbps Ethernet and nowhere near as reliable. I get dropouts on every computer that needs to be manualy re-connected at least twice a week and we have very little interfearance - not good for a server of any kind. Oh well, good luck Mattwizz3 : ) Sempron 2600+ @ 2.2GHz 1Gb DDR400 Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe 200GB SATA / 80Gb IDE 256Mb MSI 6800 Ultra

I see little effective difference between 10mbps, 11mbps, 54mbps, or 100mbps. I know one is the fastest but they all perform about the same for normal use. ...or I'm old, blind, drunk and/or all of the above. Skip