That time my buddy swore a $20 USB wifi adapter would fix my laptop's slow internet

My friend Dave kept telling me to stop messing with settings and just buy a USB adapter for my old ThinkPad because the internal card was dying. I finally did it and my download speed went from 5 Mbps to 45 Mbps almost instantly. Has anyone else had a cheap dongle save a laptop from the recycling bin?

3 comments

3 Comments

aaron_mitchell22d ago

Bought a $10 TP-Link dongle for a crusty Dell that couldn't hold a signal and it felt like I'd unlocked a new computer. Those little things punch way above their price.

taraross22d ago

Swear to god I've noticed this same thing with so many cheap little gadgets. It's like you spend a fortune on the main thing and it barely works, then a ten dollar part makes it run like new. Reminds me of how people will drop piles of cash on a fancy new truck but won't spend a few bucks on a good set of wiper blades or a phone mount that actually stays put. There's this weird mindset where we think the cheap fix can't be the real answer, but half the time it's all you needed to begin with. Makes you wonder how many things we toss out that just needed one little part to work perfectly again.

laura_chen4122d ago

Oh man, for real... I gotta agree with @taraross on that truck thing. People will drop 50 grand on a vehicle and then complain about a $20 part like it's some huge scam. It's wild. That said, I totally did this same thing with an old HP laptop that literally could not connect to wifi more than 3 feet from the router. The internal card was a total dud. Then I spent like $15 on some random no-name dongle and suddenly I was downloading games like it was a brand new machine. Honestly makes me wonder if manufacturers just put junk wifi cards in laptops on purpose... like so you eventually get frustrated and buy a new one instead of just plugging in a thumb drive sized fix. Dave was probably laughing at me the whole time I was messing with drivers and blaming the ISP.