Pen Point Cool Play answers daily questions. Today we respond to a user’s inquiry: “The motherboard does not have WiFi, the graphics card blocks the PCIe interface, and it is inconvenient to connect to the router’s network port. How to connect to the internet?” The original question is described in the image below:
In fact, this user’s need is the same as mine, except that I fiddled with this before 2017.
At that time, there was no demand for dual-band WiFi. For two or three dozen yuan, you could buy a USB network card the size of a USB stick and plug it into the chassis USB port—desktop computers can surf the internet smoothly without plugging in a network cable.
Of course, cheap network cards generally have average performance, and versions without antennas are easily interfered with, but they are convenient to use and are sufficient for users who do not have high requirements for speed and stability.
If you require network stability, choose reliable brands, such as TP-Link and Mercury, which offer certain models that are cost-effective. I still have a TP-Link portable USB network card that I bought seven or eight years ago, as shown in the image below. I specifically took a photo of it today; it is even smaller than a USB stick.
Let’s try plugging it into a Huawei MateBook 14 to see how well it works. The laptop has a built-in wireless network card, WLAN1, and the Tp-Link USB network card corresponds to the WLAN2 shown in the image below. It can be used without drivers (the laptop system is Windows 11).
You can see that this network card provides WiFi4 (802.11n), and the speed limit is slightly lower. Most mainstream wireless network cards now support WiFi 6 / WiFi 6e. Without comparison, there is no harm.
Several years ago, USB network cards required special driver installation, but now this type of product runs without drivers, which is more user-friendly for novices. The image below shows a Mercury UX3 WiFi6 USB wireless network card from Dong Ge’s self-operated store, with an AX300 standard (2.4G transmission speed of 286Mbps), which is very compact and supports AP mode (turning into a signal receiver). Currently, this network card is only 19.9 yuan in Dong Ge’s self-operated store, which is a great value compared to several years ago’s WiFi4 wireless network cards.
When buying a wireless network card, the fear is unstable signals, so try to choose well-known brands, and do not be overly tempted by low prices. Some network cards come with antennas, which can improve connectivity reliability. For example, the Tenda U2 WiFi6 intelligent plug-and-play network card comes with a high-gain WiFi 6 antenna (6 dBi). The antenna supports 180° rotation adjustment on the front and 0 to 90° adjustment on the side, plug-and-play, and currently costs only 26.9 yuan, not much more expensive.
However, having a few long antennas does not necessarily mean better performance. Although the above two models are cheap, they only support the 2.4G frequency band WiFi. The following COMFAST AX3000 model, while not having antennas, supports dual-band WiFi6 (2.4G/5G), with AX3000 corresponding to a high speed of 3000Mbps (574Mbps on the 2.4G band and 2400Mbps on the 5.8G band), and it connects via USB3.0, providing faster speeds and lower latency, making it more suitable for gaming.
Compared to USB network cards, for regular motherboards without onboard WiFi, adding a PCIe network card or M.2 network card after installation is also an option. 
The questioner previously mentioned that there are not enough PCIe slots in their computer (blocked by the graphics card), making PCIe network cards unusable.
In this case, in addition to choosing a USB network card, you can also consider a wireless network card that needs to be installed in the M.2 slot.
As for whether the M2 network card is suitable, it depends on the position of your motherboard’s slot and the environment of your chassis. If there are no conflicts with other hardware, the M2 network card can also be competent.
Finally, here are three tips for everyone:
(1) Regardless of which network card, if it has antennas, the antennas should point towards the ceiling because this way, the surrounding WiFi signals will be the strongest. Do not think that the signal will be strong wherever the antenna points; this is a common misconception.
(2) If your installation environment is very flexible, then USB network cards have the advantage of being easy to plug and unplug, install, and uninstall directly, but the speed may be limited by your USB transfer speed; PCIe network cards usually require opening the case for installation and require an available PCIe slot on the motherboard.
(3) Considering that the questioner mentioned it is inconvenient to connect to the router’s network port, it is likely that the WiFi signal is also quite ordinary. Therefore, you can change your approach and choose a WiFi repeater to solve the signal problem or bridge a wireless router to enhance the WiFi signal.