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    Upgrade laptop to gigabit ethernet

    Discussion in 'Networking and Wireless' started by frenchglen, Mar 16, 2008.

  1. frenchglen

    frenchglen Notebook Geek

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    Gee, I'm asking a lot of questions lately. :eek: nice that they're all being answered with great info! :)
    I was so annoyed when I realised my Dell Vostro 1700 didn't have gigabit. I thought it did because it has 802.11n and other nice features. So is there a way to upgrade it, or is it an irreplaceable part of the motherboard?

    Is expresscard the only option?
     
    frenchglen, Mar 16, 2008
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  2. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Its part of the motherboard...can't be swapped. But, you could get an Expresscard GigE adapter.
     
    Greg, Mar 16, 2008
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  3. frenchglen

    frenchglen Notebook Geek

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    Yeah, thought so, thanks. Know any small as possible ones?
     
    frenchglen, Mar 16, 2008
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  4. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Expresscard/34 is about the smallest you'll get.
     
    Greg, Mar 16, 2008
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  5. frenchglen

    frenchglen Notebook Geek

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    thanks. There's a linsys EC1000 that looks pretty good and a Belkin F5U250.

    I just read on a forum though that laptop drives aren't really fast enough to bother anyway. Would that be true with my 5400RPM drives?
    I wonder if 270Mbps 802.11n will be good enough and that the drives won't really perform much better than that.
     
    frenchglen, Mar 16, 2008
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  6. NotebookYoozer

    NotebookYoozer Notebook Evangelist

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    it depends on what you're using it for. if all you do is surf/torrent/download/etc... you won't see a difference in speeds, only range.

    if you do a lot of LARGE file transfers between home computers, then the speed will help.

    i'm not sure i understand your point about HD speeds?
     
    NotebookYoozer, Mar 18, 2008
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  7. frenchglen

    frenchglen Notebook Geek

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    The only reason for this would be transfers of large files through the network.
    The person on this forum didn't explain it, but I'm assuming that they meant that common laptop drives (2.5", and often with less RPM), have a lower transfer rate/performance than desktop HDDs, but I don't know if this is true or not.
     
    frenchglen, Mar 18, 2008
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  8. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    The biggest factor isn't HDD speeds. When transferring across the net, you're limited by your DSL/Cable/Dial-up/FIOS connection...your networking equipment will be much faster than your internet connection.

    GigE improves internal transfers only. 1000Mb/s = 125MB/s. And in reality you'll get probably 50-80% of that at best. HDD speeds, even for laptops, are up for that transfer rate.
     
    Greg, Mar 19, 2008
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  9. blue68f100

    blue68f100 Notebook Virtuoso

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    I can hit my max HD speed on my desktop pc with GigE, coming from my NAS. But i have close to 80MB/sec (FTP) on GigE. So a 5400 rpm NB drive or slower you may hit in the 30-50MB/sec range. Writes to HD are slower. FTP give you the fastest transfer speed, eliminates MS Overhead. Use FTP Client software for best performance. FileZilla gave me the best performance.
     
    blue68f100, Mar 19, 2008
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  10. frenchglen

    frenchglen Notebook Geek

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    cool! I'll try ftp as well then.
     
    frenchglen, Mar 20, 2008
    #10