PC Trouble, Laptop Charger is Suspect - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 07:53:35 pm
content: I was sitting here watching youtube and once again my wifi cuts out again. I have to run a network troubleshoot sometimes followed by a hardware scan while smacking it to get it going again. (it's not a software fault, this is a new hard disk and it still does it)Then I noticed something...a faint buzzing in the earphonesA LINE FREQUENCY BUZZ! *GASP*I know what's going down here! Sure enough unplugging the "Targus" brand charger stopped it!FILTHY CHEAP CAPACITORS!The thing always got untouchable hot after a few hours, I think it finally boiled the caps! Could the ripple have been causing some of the weird faults with the wifi?

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 08:14:03 pm
content: somewhat related but Ijave a T410s with a hard drive caddy in place of the cd drive, and for some reason, using one of my lenovo chargers it refuses to work, but using another one it works fine, and they are both super close wattage wise.Power adapters can cause all sorts of weird issues.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 08:18:00 pm
content: And thus, this is the reason I do not use laptops.Tablet/phone for taking places, and a desktop for everything else.

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 08:21:13 pm
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 05, 2016, 08:18:00 pmDo you really trust USB chargers? Have a look at bigclivedotcom on youtube.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 08:29:13 pm
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 05, 2016, 08:18:00 pmThat's the worst reason to rule out laptops I've ever seen. Just use a reputable brand charger.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 08:57:22 pm
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 05, 2016, 08:29:13 pmIt's not the only reason.Here are some.Terrible cost-performance compared to desktopsThey burn the hell out of your lap.They overheat like crazy.They are useless to bring anywhere since they are massive and have often no battery life.You can barely customize them.They break a lot easier.They are more dangerous due to Liion batteries.The screens are singular and tiny, often with poor quality.They store WAY less.Prebuilds only.I have been dealing with laptops for a few years, and I absolutely despise them. Android tabs make MUCH more sense, and are WAY cheaper.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 10:09:20 pm
content: Still invalid reasons.I can buy a laptop drive the same size as a desktop drive, it just costs a little more.My business grade laptops do not burn my leg, they have proper thermal design.I can't balance a desktop on my lap and I don't have space for a desk anywhere.

author: System Error Message
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 10:25:17 pm
content: laptops have come a long way. Now there are laptops with desktop CPU and GPUs just like in the old days like the sun portable server which even has a full PCI slot. Its basically a laptop that is a portable server.Laptops have near desktop performance. The only thing i hate about laptop compared to desktop is serviceability but because you cant change components rarely do things go wrong that you cant change.Ofcourse you cant install your own custom cooling as well or water cool it.But as for as performance goes nothing as nice as putting 3 GPUs on a desktop with a CPU that has an IGP like the ivybridge i7 and running openCL on all 5 processors.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 02:54:31 am
content: Quote from: eugenenine on September 05, 2016, 10:09:20 pmYou can't gear ANYWHERE near the size of a desktop drive, and what if you want two? And if you don't have space then that is the one and only option I could see, but it's really only a last resort for me.But there are normally places everywhere for a desktop. Mini-ITX computers can fit behind a TV. Add a keyboard + mouse and you have a massive screen workstation. And you can squeeze a lot into a small space. Mid towers aren't that big and can be shoved in a corner somewhere.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 02:58:23 am
content: Quote from: System Error Message on September 05, 2016, 10:25:17 pmWhile laptops with desktop gear DO exist, they are WAY WAY more expensive than a regular desktop. And in the topic of price, you can start with a few basic parts on a computer and upgrade it a part at a time.A laptop you have to start with the GPU and CPU you want, and have to maybe improve the RAM or storage options, but the laptops that even have the decent GPUs and CPUs normally have everything else that is good. You don't get a laptop with an i7-4790k and a GTX 1070, that has 4 gigs of ram and a 240 GB hard drive. Also peripherals are a nightmare. The screens are usually pretty poor, and can't be replaced. The keyboards TOTALLY suck with only a few odd laptops having Cherry MX type keyboards, and mice are a joke with trackpads being about as responsive as a skeleton in the corner.Laptops MAY have a place to those living with REALLY tight quarters, and they can be made DAMN cheap sometimes, but desktops will outclass laptops head over heel every day of the week.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 03:32:23 am
content: In terms of storage, you can get 4tb hard drives out on enclosures which are just white label SATA drives, find a laptop with two drive bays and also stick a caddy in place of the CD drive and you have a shitload of storage in a mobile device, though I wouldn't leave that much data on a laptop alone, I have a server with several terabytes of storage that I use so huge storage on my laptop isn't a big priority.Also I agree, and have always said, because it's true, dollar for dollar you can build a better desktop than you would get with a laptop, but when something like an educational grant comes your way and you have to get a laptop, a core i7 4710hq and gtx 970m are damn impressive, especially when you come from a core 2 quad and gtx 660 ocAlso there are enthusiast laptops out there with replaceable graphics cards and cpu's meaning you can upgrade them in the future easily.Also, what? Screens can't be replaced? That's absolute bullshit.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 03:37:25 am
content: And every single argument you're making completely ignores the elephant in the room: You can close the lid, put it in a bag, and take it with you.There are such things as good laptops. Also, you're wrong and massively misinformed/willfully ignorant on so many points.'They are useless to bring anywhere since they are massive and have often no battery life.'They range from 10" display to 17". Typical 15" is quite compact enough to, y'know, put in a bag and take with you. Mine's been in more than one country without involving a shipping container. Do that with your desktop.As far as battery life goes.. ranges from as little as an hour in the old days, to a moderate 2-5 hours depending on a wide range of factors, to upwards of 12 hours.'You can barely customize them.'What do you want to customise? The colour?'They break a lot easier.'Not as easily as a desktop does if you pick it up and move it every day. Daft argument.'They are more dangerous due to Liion batteries.'.... I'm more likely to be hit by a car crossing the dead-end street outside my house than be harmed by any of my li-ion powered devices. Get real.'The screens are singular and tiny, often with poor quality.'Not always singular, and tiny is.. well, how big do you want it? Quality can be excellent, stop judging all laptops based on experiences with those which cost less than a decent monitor!'They store WAY less.'.. yes, and they're also vulnerable to being lost, stolen, damaged.. which is why you store large things elsewhere. Your desktop doesn't storeshitcompared to a small fileserver, so you should just use one of th- crap, where's the display connector?'Prebuilds only.'Because you could build a better one.'The screens are usually pretty poor, and can't be replaced.'Of course they can be replaced - you just don't know how.'The keyboards TOTALLY suck with only a few odd laptops having Cherry MX type keyboards, and mice are a joke with trackpads being about as responsive as a skeleton in the corner.'The keyboards vary, some are quite okay, but like all keyboards that is very much a subjective opinion, not an objective fact. As far as trackpads go.. there are other options, and you can attach a mouse if you want.'You don't get a laptop with an i7-4790k and a GTX 1070, that has 4 gigs of ram and a 240 GB hard drive.'No, but you do get one with a Xeon E3-1575M, a Quadro M5000M (Those aren't made for gaming, so don't try and compare it to your GTX 1070), 64GiB of ECC RAM, and the capacity for well over 4TB of storage.Any other ridiculous arguments you'd like to make?

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 03:42:14 am
content: ^ Mine is actually a 17.3" display, and I have a Lenovo T410s which is a good sized screen for business stuff and it's super light, plus it has the trackpoint which lets you ignore the mousepad.Also I missed the prebuild part, for those laptops which have replaceable gpus and cpu's, like sager ones, you can get them custom built.

author: KL27x
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 03:43:15 am
content: But... how do I run all my Windows applications on an Android tablet?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 03:45:01 am
content: Quote from: KL27x on September 06, 2016, 03:43:15 amOr type. Or usefully view detailed drawings. etc. And the answer to this is not, never has been, and never will be 'a Windows tablet'. It just isn't the same as a real working computer you can pick up and move.Yeah, my laptop's heavy, but so's the rest of me.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 03:58:02 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 06, 2016, 03:45:01 amPlus even if your laptop is a bit of a behemoth, if you use it for work you bring it with you, then set it down for the rest of the day, and bring it back, you don't carry it constantly.And sure a tablet is light enough you can just whip it out of a purse/backpack but it's way more limited. Bluetooth peripherals like a keyboard are way more of a pain to deal with than a built in keyboard and touchpad.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 04:25:31 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 06, 2016, 03:37:25 amYou can stuff a lot of HDDs in anything bigger than a "super compact" desktop. Probably more than what you would realistically need.Perhaps what we need is a backpack PC that uses a tablet as the UI? That would considerably increase the weight and size limits. Nvidia already has a very low latency remote display solution and the problem is much simplified when the usual working range is a few feet. 60GHz would work nicely if they could bring the costs down.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 04:30:12 am
content: 'They are useless to bring anywhere since they are massive and have often no battery life.'They range from 10" display to 17". Typical 15" is quite compact enough to, y'know, put in a bag and take with you. Mine's been in more than one country without involving a shipping container. Do that with your desktop.I can fit an 8" android tab into my hand to take anywhere.As far as battery life goes.. ranges from as little as an hour in the old days, to a moderate 2-5 hours depending on a wide range of factors, to upwards of 12 hours.A weak laptop might get more battery life, but high power laptops on load last 3-4 hours at most. Some tablets and phone can last you the whole day on varying loads.'You can barely customize them.'What do you want to customise? The colour?I mean if you want a new processor, you have to either source a new one if your laptop even uses a socket, and you cannot outright replace the motherboard to have a different socket without replacing EVERYTHING else. Same with GPUs, Memory type, drive support, network, pretty much EVERYTHING. And colour is a good while minute point. I can use ANY case for an ATX based desktop, while I need to use whatever design happens to match with the laptop specs and price.They have less drive bays making things like Raid impossible unless you have a fancy (Expensive) laptop with 2 drive or M.2 bays.'They break a lot easier.'Not as easily as a desktop does if you pick it up and move it every day. Daft argument.I can agree with you on this and the Liion points. They do tend to be brittle, and are WAY more expensive to repair, but Liion tech is very stable, and laptops do have the factor of being portable. I admit defeat here.'They are more dangerous due to Liion batteries.'.... I'm more likely to be hit by a car crossing the dead-end street outside my house than be harmed by any of my li-ion powered devices. Get real.'The screens are singular and tiny, often with poor quality.'Not always singular, and tiny is.. well, how big do you want it? Quality can be excellent, stop judging all laptops based on experiences with those which cost less than a decent monitor!I can plop down 100 dollars for an IPS 1080p60 Dual HDMI/MHL monitor with VGA (Whooptie doo) support and a VERY low response time. A 600 dollar laptop doesn't do this with the performance ofa 400 dollar computer.'They store WAY less.'.. yes, and they're also vulnerable to being lost, stolen, damaged.. which is why you store large things elsewhere. Your desktop doesn't store shit compared to a small fileserver, so you should just use one of th- crap, where's the display connector?I happen to use a file server as well, but I also use my main computer as a File server. I have about 2.5 TB of network attached storage, and 2 TB of that is directly attached to my computer with a fasterSATA link.'Prebuilds only.'Because you could build a better one.The entire concept of a custom/self built computer is that you can fine tune and hunt the parts WAY better than a prebuilding company. If I can swap out all the laptop parts under a clearly defined standard, I might be willing to consider it, but as it stands I am not aware of many popular standards for this.'The screens are usually pretty poor, and can't be replaced.'Of course they can be replaced - you just don't know how.With what? The same screen? I can get Amazon to drop a monitor by me in 2 days, and I can plop it on my desk to use it in 20 minutes. And some laptops have screens that are ALMOST impossible to replace, and they give no advantage to doing so unless you broke your screen.'The keyboards TOTALLY suck with only a few odd laptops having Cherry MX type keyboards, and mice are a joke with trackpads being about as responsive as a skeleton in the corner.'The keyboards vary, some are quite okay, but like all keyboards that is very much a subjective opinion, not an objective fact. As far as trackpads go.. there are other options, and you can attach a mouse if you want.Keyboards are normally pretty piss and pretty brittle. I have seen some good ones, but the best are external desktop keyboards by landslides.'You don't get a laptop with an i7-4790k and a GTX 1070, that has 4 gigs of ram and a 240 GB hard drive.'No, but you do get one with a Xeon E3-1575M, a Quadro M5000M (Those aren't made for gaming, so don't try and compare it to your GTX 1070), 64GiB of ECC RAM, and the capacity for well over 4TB of storage.I call foul on this one. I was saying you can't take a piss ass laptop and upgrade it one part at a time like putting in an i7-4790k and a GTX 1070 while using your old RAM and hard disk until you can afford more. This is a rough example, but you can more easily make gradual, more affordable increments with a PC. With a laptop you have to have all the money for all the final step (or close to) parts TODAY, or use a dingy financing scheme.Android tabs can run a lot of productivity apps, have good peripheral support, and are smaller. The screens are normally AWESOME (200 dollar Nvidia Shield Tab K1 can have a bluetooth keyboard in the case, and has an AMAZING 1200p IPS display with touch support) and bigger tablets are available to those who really need more space. They can also take advantage of mobile data more easily (Laptops can, but they normally need external, and VERY expensive modems.)Laptops might be alright if you are really tight on space, or if you seriously need PC power on the go with you (You normally don't).

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 04:32:04 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on September 06, 2016, 04:25:31 amGrab an ITX computer and plop it in bag. Might not be the lightest and most secure thing in the world, but you can then have a small monitor and keyboard/mouse setup that hooks in through thunderbolt.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 04:39:34 am
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 06, 2016, 04:32:04 amHell, if you want super compact get a NUC, but I have a feeling he'd have an issue with that as well, but that's the sort of thing you really wouldn't ever bother upgrading, except for ram and maybe the hard drive.edit: fixed where my text went.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 04:51:29 am
content: And once again you completely miss the entire point.ITX computer? Cables everywhere, need mains, need a desk, it's bulkier than a laptop..QuoteAndroid? Whoops, can't run any software. Bluetooth keyboard? Total garbage compared to most decent laptop keyboards, also potentially insecure. Touch support? Impractical forwork.Mobile data, external? Every working laptop made in the last decade supports WWAN. The modem costs nothing compared to using it. Again you're confusing stupid $300 consumer plastic shells with real machines for doing work.You have no use of a real working device on the move. Fine. All your arguments are totally and utterly irrelevant to anyone who actually needs a mobile workstation. You simply do not understand the target market.'100 dollar' 'IPS' 'low response time' does not compute. IPS are not fast, 100 dollars is desperately cheap, and response times are relevant essentially only to gaming. Oh, btw, I'm a gamer and have been building my own computers for 15 years. The current crop of parts are garbage ruined by cheapskates and gimmick seekers.RAID in a laptop does not compute. Never has, never will. Target market, tool for job..

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 05:16:59 am
content: Alright, fine. I just rarely ever been in the need of a mobile workstation, and when I have I have been SEVERELY disappointing and I missed my desktop setup within a few hours.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 05:19:01 am
content: I saw an alienware rig with raid 0 set up for it, dumbest shit ever, it caused data loss. Raid 1 might be alright but chances of a drive dying during rebuild means I wouldn't want to rely on that alone especially in a laptop where drives get abused more.Also you are forgetting to take the second hand market into account, I got my t410s for free, and put $250 of parts in it maybe, skipping out on the msata SSD (got the drive caddy, a 1tb hard drive, replacement screen and some ram) and it was a $1400 machine 3 years prior. Worth every penny and would trounce the crap out of anything you'd buy new for that price then.Lenovo has a beast ass workstation that would trounce many desktop style workstations as well, but that thing is for someone who is on the move regularly, but not far from a power outlet. Basically someone who needs all that power to be easily portable and quick to set up.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 05:23:45 am
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 06, 2016, 05:19:01 amYea, but my main point is that laptops are last resort items. They are if you REALLY need power on the go. They can never replace a desktop, as they are more expensive, and a worse investment overall. They do have a target market, but in my opinion they are for when you are required to go anywhere ONLY, and are never a replacement for a desktop.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 05:50:10 am
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 06, 2016, 05:23:45 amI see them as more of a parallel, ideally you'd have one with similar power to your desktop with a dock that you can use to sync the two for as near of a seamless experience as you can get,I would have much preffered to build a pc with the money from the grand, and asked them but it needed to be a laptop, so I chose one with higher specs and none of the educational software and it has been an eye opener as far as gaming on things other than a desktop can be like.A desktop built with that funding would still outperform it, but mostly due to the GPU.For a cost of $2230 or so (I only payed a small fraction) it's the sort of thing that wouldn't be all that much to someone with a good job either. If you are looking to alienware that would change but you get ripped by them anyways.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 06:43:22 am
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 06, 2016, 04:39:34 amThe NUC, being more or less laptop hardware in a mini desktop box, defeats the whole point. Mini ITX with a desktop GPU would be the way to go. A surplus Leaf battery module or two should easily run it for a few hours and a hacked server PSU for a quick charge. Seems like a fun project although I currently have no use for something like that.

author: System Error Message
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 01:49:18 pm
content: the problem with laptops is that they're doing away with gigabit ethernet port. To me that is a must and usb ethernet adapters arent always great compared to onboard/PCIe ones. A decent laptop with gigabit ethernet port is very very helpful with the portability when you need to configure things all over the place.You cant compare laptops to desktops, they are different things. You can customise laptop hardware as high end laptops use MxM modules for the GPU and some like the really big alienwares have 2 MxM slots. The alienware m17 or m18 with core2quad had 2MxM slots + PCI equivalent for physx card. battery life may suck but they are portable. Newer alienwares and the like use both IGP and dedicated GPU so you get a portable desktop with decent or good battery life and you can use the computing power when you need it by plugging in.you might want to google the thinkpad frankenstein as an example of how a laptop may be customised. older thinkpad docks had PCIe slots in them you could use a GPU or any other card you want. much smaller than desktop for the things you need at that time. I also have used various desktop GPUs with laptops for fun and they do work with an external PSU.you can customise laptops especially high end in various ways. Screens, keyboards can be replaced. A lot of the components can be replaced too and unlike phones many screens are compatible with them so you have cheap replacement parts. CPU, storage, ram on many can be replaced too. GPU is tricky as you can replaced one embedded onto board (this is an EEE forum, shame on you to suggest otherwise), even battery can be replaced. Sure you dont get many ports like on a desktop but if you are the kind of person to use micro or mini atx than what difference does it make? You arent making a portable file/disk/raid server. For high end laptops the GPUs are modular so theres an upgrade you can get.True laptops are more expensive but you are paying for compactness and portabilty.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 04:25:07 pm
content: Quote from: System Error Message on September 06, 2016, 01:49:18 pm"They" seems like a bit of a generic point.The reason some companies might be doing away with Gigabit ethernet is that Gigabit 802.11AC has taken the spot and there is no need for it. I am sure there will be laptops with an Ethernet port, but it's not really needed that much anymore.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 04:26:20 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on September 06, 2016, 06:43:22 amIt seems like a Ben Heck thing to do. The main problem in my eyes is to have it so a jerk of the backpack won't cause everything to snap and detach. The NUC is like a Raspi without the GPIO and using x86 architecture.

author: System Error Message
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 04:30:28 pm
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 06, 2016, 04:25:07 pmThe reason isnt because of wifi AC, its because people rarely use ethernet. However even in the face of 4x4 wifi ac gigabit ethernet is still superior because of less interference and better consistent performance. Very easily i fill up a full gigabit ethernet port transferring to my file server which has SFP+. windows says 99% NIC use but the cool thing i can do with ethernet that you cant do with wifi is that i can upload at link speeds to my file server and at the same time get all the stats and info from my file server (like task manager, remote desktop) and also watch a video at the same time while uploading thanks to the full duplex nature of gigabit ethernet. wifi is only half duplex, try this on wifi and you will run into issues, packet drops and other problems.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 05:00:01 pm
content: Ethernet ports are only going away on slim machines (ultrabooks/latest trendy name). Proper workhorses still have them.USB 3 NICs seem to be much better than the old ones, also.QuoteThey've done away with it on some machines because non-workers don't need reliable networking. That and space restrictions.Again, many of those of us who need to use a PC somewhere other than our desk have regular use of wired networking, and wifi is not a substitute for us.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 10:13:06 pm
content: Quote from: System Error Message on September 06, 2016, 04:30:28 pm802.11 AC is on the 5 Ghz band which has WAY more channels than 2.4 and has less interference due to the fact that few devices use 5Ghz RF. But your points still stand.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 10:31:07 pm
content: Well this thread went wayyy off topic.The oldest laptop I have in use currently is a Dell Latitude C400 that I paid $1200 for in 2002. I upgraded the hdd once every 2-3 years and had to replace the backlight bulb for $10 a few years ago.After that I bought a netbook for $300 and after that I have only bought < $200 'refurbished' laptops. I have to upgrade every couple years now since we have a family of 4 and the kids always want something newer.as far as miniitx, I have one of those hooked to the tv, runs kodi, but I can't use that when the wife is watching a movie. Up in my closet in the space of a minitower I have 4 raspberry Pi's and a beaglebone black.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 10:48:16 pm
content: Quote from: eugenenine on September 06, 2016, 10:31:07 pmIt's the curse of the home computer geek. You can spend days working on the perfect file sharing, web hosting, and media playing system, and have it make any UHD Blu Ray leave brown skidmarks, but nobody will use it because the simplest method is what they use. I bet all anybody, but you uses is just a DVD or Blu-Ray for movies.EDIT: And yea, sorry to the OP for ruining your thread there. Oh well.Don't feel bad, my dad has a computer in the living room that nobody ever uses. I always just use the chromecast with an Android tab.

author: System Error Message
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 09:43:41 pm
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on September 06, 2016, 10:13:06 pmSay all you like about wifi but wifi will never be a substitute for gigabit ethernet or even SFP+. Those gigabits worth of bandwidth and full duplex is better than wifi half duplex. Sure 5Ghz has more channels and less interference but i've seen many devices on auto act weird like shadowing the channel my AP uses even though there are many other channels free. If you were in the UK and you checked your wifi at home the number of 5Ghz is already huge. Every ISP here gives out a crappy wifi AC router and the general design of consumer wifi isnt great.But lets compare proper things. I tested the capability of wifi AC and it is far from ethernet. In my test i used intel 2x2 adapter with an asus AC68U and a server on gigabit ethernet not using realtek. I crammed as many packets as the CPU would allow and the maximum i got was 90% link utilisation with many dropped packets. If this were gigabit ethernet i could do the same with no dropped packets and stream a 4k movie at source at the same time while spamming the bandwidth tester as much as the CPU allows. This is where ethernet differs from wifi. Sure wifi AC shows impressive numbers but i had to be within a few meters of the AP for that 5Ghz and gigabit ethernet has a range spec of 100meters using cat5e which even with 4x4 wifi you will not get at that range. So despite how awesome they market wifi to be wifi is a convenience not something that will ever be able to replace the performance and reliability ethernet or wire. Practical wifi rates for wireless AC is 60% of the link rate so if you wish to use that fancy 4x4 wifi AC bandwidth you would be tethered to within a few meters of the AP and thats if it is a good one on a good day whereas for gigabit ethernet as long as the system isnt fully utilised in resource getting 99% of the link utilised is no problem whatsoever and the full duplex nature allows you to do even more without running into collisions and inconsistent performance.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 06:10:25 am
content: Quote from: System Error Message on September 07, 2016, 09:43:41 pmYour telling me. I've never used 802.11AC. I am stuck with 2.4Ghz 802.11N until I can manage a more impressive AP. NOBODY uses the 5Ghz band here. MAYBE some wireless home phones, but you can't hold 2.4 Ghz anything here. I have a 2.4 Ghz headset, three 2.4Ghz access points, all our phone handsets use 2.4 Ghz comms, along with bluetooth devices one or two, and probably more stuff I forgot. Even with a 150 - 300 Mbps link speed on a router with nothing else on it on a direct ethernet link to a 90/90 internet link, a speed test gives a third of the speed. About 35/45 or so, I forgot by now. But that is from a network speed of 300 Mbps to 30-40 in lost packets alone. I mean I could do better with sneakernet. In my situation, and the situation along most of the US, a 5Ghz link would drop very little even with it's reduced range.Either way you are right, and I am not claiming ethernet should be replaced. I was just giving my two cents on why it might be. Thing is while a few laptops might be removing this, I don't see it happening in the future. Anyways with USB 3/3.1 speeds you could also put a fast NIC on a USB port.Either way, AC is pretty cool, though I have never tried it.

author: System Error Message
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 06:15:19 pm
content: If wifi was all that great why arent datacenters using them for all their servers and stuff? Despite the marketing hype wifi is not that great.You're in the US where the density is much lower. In the UK everything is tightly packed, space is a premium so people build houses upwards rather than outwards. Many houses dont even have a garage and a tiny front garden. All the main ISPs here come with routers that also use AC1900. So if you were in the UK and upgraded/ordered some internet you will get an AC1900 router with it. This means that even in the UK now 5 ghz is also a bit packed and lets not forget the bad behaving wifi devices as well that dont make the best use of wifi channels.So what im saying is that dont believe the numbers you see on wifi. Wifi overheads are bigger than ethernet being half duplex and having to tolerate interference and collisions. Try yourself even with wifi N the best speed you can get. 5Ghz goes down much faster with range than 2.4Ghz so if you want those speeds, theres no substitute for gigabit ethernet or SFP+5Ghz may have just enough space here but it requires getting your own router and using a channel that none of these ISP provided routers use. FCC on locking down firmwares makes it even worse as the US actually has the highest allowed channels of 5ghz in the world (see wikipedia).But spectrum usage aside, the practical rates and usage of wifi just cannot compare to gigabit ethernet even if you are using 4x4 with a link speed of 1.7Gb/s because when you start multi tasking thats where wifi badly copes. Try distributing files on wifi and doing other things at the same time and connections will drop, speeds will be slow for some and other issues. Gaming routers have QoS for this sort of stuff and so do enterprise solutions for something that wont achieve the performance that you can get with gigabit ethernet even if you can transfer a file faster than gigabit ethernet but the overheads prevent proper multi tasking so when you start multi tasking the speeds drop way down. So just for some better performance on wifi it costs so much more than just snaking a cat5e/cat6 cable around, not to mention at the range gigabit ethernet does better.People design products for theoretical and not practical. So wifi will always remain a convenience, with newer protocols like AC bringing better performance and range but will never replace wire. I always advice people to wire what devices they can as this improves performance for both those devices and other devices on wifi. On wifi with high traffic latency greatly increases, but on gigabit ethernet with lots of traffic the latency is still low.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 09:21:19 pm
content: Quote from: System Error Message on September 08, 2016, 06:15:19 pmDatacenters use thing like 10 Gigabit ethernet or Infiniband solutions for networking. Gigabit interfaces wireless or wired are WAY too slow. And wireless coms do not work great with a ton of devices. 802.11 is not the cure all for every need, but it's capable of a lot. And in my spot of the US we are packed in like sardines. Look up Schenectady, the houses are tight, and we also build up. Yet everyone uses 802.11N @2.4 Ghz since it's a damn cheap standard and our ISPs give you something that works, and only works.Then again I am sure I could reach gigabit speeds on an 802.11 AC connection with a proper android tablet that supports it since there is nothing to interfere with it.