USB WiFi Dongle bests my Airport Card in MacPro5,1

[James Steele]

Just wanted to share something I discovered during my adventures with upgrading my 12-core MacPro 5,1 studio computer to Mojave. In the course of doing so, I had to swap Airport Cards between my studio MacPro5,1 and my office MacPro as the AirPort card in my studio Mac was not compatible with Mojave, but the one in my office MacPro (running High Sierra) WAS.

During the swap, I messed up one of the antenna leads on my office Mac, but the WiFi worked, but was pretty slow... 50Mbps on the 5Ghz side of the router. My cable company plan gives me a potential 300 Mbps download speed. So I ordered this on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RN44SHW/re ... UTF8&psc=1

It's about $14. It arrived today, came with a CD to install drivers and Speed Test showed it was doing about 150-160 Mbps!!!!

Now my studio Mac is only doing about 90 Mbps, so I decided to see how it would work on that machine. As you can see... The AirPort card managed only 92 Mbps... yet the this cheap USB WiFI dongle nearly doubled the speed to 174 Mbps.

Screen Shot 2021-10-11 at 1.09.15 AM.png (17.53 KiB) Viewed 945 times

I IMMEDIATELY ordered a second one. It literally kicks the crap out of the built in AirPort cards on the old style MacPros. I suspect it always had something to do with the metal case and internal antenna. I put this little dongle in the USB port on the very front of the case where it's not obstructed by anything and I assume might get the strongest signal from my router.

Any way, I just have to say if you're using an internal AirPort card in your MacPro and you're getting sub 100 Mbps download speed on your WiFi connection and your cable connection can provide more, you might want to get this thing. Works great on Mojave at least.

[HCMarkus]

Good Info James.

Although I always connected my studio Mac Pros via Ethernet, I also always disconnect the internal Bluetooth transceiver and use a USB Bluetooth dongle hanging off a USB port near my desk.

Getting wireless, no matter the flavor, outside of the Mac Pro metal chassis is definitely a good idea!

[mikehalloran]

I’m jealous. Smack dab in the middle of the Silicon Valley and we can’t even get 100mps from anyone, Everything’s still copper around here.



That adapter looks great. Doesn’t support Big Sur yet but that should happen at some point.

[HCMarkus]

I’m jealous. Smack dab in the middle of the Silicon Valley and we can’t even get 100mps from anyone, Everything’s still copper around here.

Dang! I'm somewhat surprised no fiber, but no cable? Wow.

[mikehalloran]

I’m jealous. Smack dab in the middle of the Silicon Valley and we can’t even get 100mps from anyone, Everything’s still copper around here.

Dang! I'm somewhat surprised no fiber, but no cable? Wow.

In my neighborhood, the only thing worse than AT&T is Comcast and I’ll leave it at that. When I worked for AT&T, they paid my cable bill since DSL was not available to my neighborhood. That changed about 10 years ago.

It could be even worse: There’s a corridor near the Santa Clara HP complex less than a mile from the new Apple world HQ. They have two choices: 768k dialup from AT&T or 5mps satellite from DirecTV (also AT&T) since about 6 years ago. That’s it.

[HCMarkus]

Starlink in Silicon Valley

Film at 11.

[mikehalloran]

Starlink in Silicon Valley

Film at 11.

We are well aware and everyone’s talking about it. Right now, it’s 3x the cost, 1/2 the speed of what I have from AT&T with unacceptable latency (noticeable with Zoom) so no reason to consider it. When it’s ready for prime time, something to consider.

For those in the underserved parts of the valley like the Lawrence Xpwy corridor that I mentioned earlier and south valley, it is highly recommended.