ASUS PCE-AC88 Dual-Band 4x4 AC3100 WiFi PCIe adapter with Heat Sink and External magnetic antenna base allows flexible antenna placement to maximize coverage

We had a TP-LINK AC1750 adapter in a desktop built a few years ago, and it had been struggling to maintain connectivity for the past year or so, even after we bought an external extension array for the antennae. I had just upgraded our wireless router from a Netgear N900 WNDR4500 to an ASUS AX6000 RT-AX88U, but that did nothing for the adapter in the older desktop. In fact, it may have just made things worse.I was hesitant to buy the ASUS adapter, because that ASUS router is . . . a lot to handle, unless you're a network engineer. The setup and UI for the ASUS router isn't exactly user-friendly.We first deleted the old WiFi adapter drivers by re-running the original driver setup application. Thankfully, this was an option, because we were unsure what to delete from within Windows Device Manager. After uninstaling the old driver, we uninstalled the old card.Turns out that the ASUS wireless adapter is simple to install and use. The bracket needed to be tweaked (bent slightly at the top and bottom), allowing the card to better fit the PCI bus—this happens with other cards, as well. After physically installing the new card, we installed the drivers from the included CD. The offering online were confusing—we could not tell if they were drivers, utilities, or a combination of both, and there's no guidance available. After installing the drivers, we connected the antennae extension array and connected to the home WiFi through the widget in Windows Task Bar. All we had to do was remember the WiFi password!There were no menus to navigate, no Byzantine questions to answer, no trouble to be had, anywhere. It just worked.The new adapter is ridiculously fast, compared to the old one. This adapter can maintain connectivity via the 5G band, where the old one would regularly drop the signal. Online gaming isn't losing connectivity. Downloads are quite fast.This is a great product. Online, there was mention of a utility that switched off a KRACK exploit vulnerability, but, as is normal for ASUS, there's no explanation of how to use the utility. As we experienced with our ASUS AX6000 RT-AX88U router, ASUS would benefit by integrating a more user-friendly interface between its products and its customers—at all points within the ASUS ecosystem.

Hands down the best wifi card Ive ever used. This card was a bit overkill for the current 250mbps broadband speed I pay for, but I wanted something that would be capable of the 1gb speeds I plan to upgrade to when I move into my new house.Anyway so I needed a good wifi card because I recently sold my house and moved into an apartment temporarily until my new home is completed. Since I am in an apartment at the moment I had to downsize my network and I could snake cat6 cables through the walls terminating in every room like I did at my house. So for the most part all of my devices are now running wireless with the exception of my nas, but thats a different story. Since I never had to rely on a wireless connection for my PC's before my main PC had an old wireless N card in it that just was not going to cut it. So it was time for an upgrade. Did some research and narrowed it down between this card and the TP-link Archer T9E. Both of the cards are great and they are both capable of the gigabit speeds I plan on. Ultimately I chose the ASUS card for one reason. I liked that I could position the antennas where ever I wanted rather than them just being screwed to the PCIe card.So far I have had the card for a month and its going strong. The Wifi card is running in my main desktop along with a linksys EA8300 router and a Netgear CM1000 cable modem. I have yet to have any problems with this card. Never have I lost a connection to the internet due to the wifi card and it has never failed to connect to the internet once the computer is booted. This card has actually exceeded my expectations as it is consistently allowing me 300mbps download and 12mbps upload which is more than the 250mbps upload I pay for. This in an apartment complex where there are 100's of wifi signals; a notoriously bad place for a wireless connection. So yeah Im quite happy. I still get really slow transfer speeds to my NAS, but that isnt the fault of the wireless card. That is just the nature of the game. Still it sucks transferring something like 30gb blu-ray movie to my nas wirelessly. It takes for ever. Im use to about 120mbps transfer speeds to and from my Nas, but with the wireless connection I am only getting a consistent 35mbps. Brutally slow, but its just something I have to deal with for now.