Wireless Cards..

Is the Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945 Mini Card (802.11 a/g, 54Mbps) worth paying the 23 bucks to upgrade from the Dell Wireless 1390 Mini Card (802.11b/g, 54Mbps). What exactly is the difference here?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=52068

Check out this thread.

 

Yes. Faster login and easier interface.

 

I'd like to add that I prefer the Dell 1390 because of a couple of nice features that the Intel 3945 (and associated driver and app) don't have.

1. The 1390 has a neat option that will automatically disable the WiFi radio if you plug an ethernet cable into your laptop (to save power, among other things). This is very handy, so as to not have two internet connections running at the same time. Maybe it's just me, but without it, i'm always having to disconnect or disable my Wifi when at home and connected to a wired connection.

2. It has a "Netstumbler-like" feature built into it's driver application. Kinda cool.

If the Intel 3945 had feature #1, i'd switch to it. But I don't think it has the ability to "disable the Wifi on wired connect" on the notebook.

 

Is pressing Fn + F2 to disable the wireless card that much of a hassle?

 

I didn't say it was a hassle. It's just automatic with the 1390 set to do so.

I've also found that the Fn+F2 doesn't always sync with what the driver is doing, so sometimes when I've pressed the Fn+F2 and gotten the "radio tower" picture (the one that pops onto the screen in the lower right and then fades out) to turn on the Wifi, it is still off. Seems the driver and the Fn+F2 aren't always sync'ed. So I have to either press it again, or go down to the system tray, right click, and choose 'Enable Radio'.

It's happened more than once.

 

Go figure, never had any issues with the hot key combo. But then again I'm usually always using the wireless, so I don't use it very often.