[dfr200764]

Hi

I have been trying to sort out a laptop for my 9 year old daughter so she can just surf the net - club penguin and all the other 'harmless' sites. I do have an old toshiba sp4600 but couldnt get it to connect to my wireless router as the wireless adapter I got for the laptop insists on USB 2.0 and nothing less whereas I think this laptop only has USB 1.1 (12 Mb per sec as opposed to 460 Mb per sec for the USB 2.0). I tried to install a USB card bus with USB 2.0 capability (but it wouldnt even install the software !). Anyway I managed to get a cheap 2nd hand DELL Inspiron 1000 off Ebay and just wondered if it is likely to have USB 2.0 (for the Wireless adapter). I did a google but couldnt find anything. I didnt have time to contact the vendor as the auction had only minutes to go and looked like a reasonable deal ( comes with Win XP re-installed and MS Office ) and just a very basic package, which is obviously what I was after. If anyone owns one or knows, I would be pleased to hear. thanks. Dean.

[Hybr!d]

Chances are the Tosh would have a PCMCIA slot.



Use that with a PCMCIA network card.

[serverguy]

Originally Posted by dfr200764

Hi

I have been trying to sort out a laptop for my 9 year old daughter so she can just surf the net - club penguin and all the other 'harmless' sites. I do have an old toshiba sp4600 but couldnt get it to connect to my wireless router as the wireless adapter I got for the laptop insists on USB 2.0 and nothing less whereas I think this laptop only has USB 1.1 (12 Mb per sec as opposed to 460 Mb per sec for the USB 2.0). I tried to install a USB card bus with USB 2.0 capability (but it wouldnt even install the software !). Anyway I managed to get a cheap 2nd hand DELL Inspiron 1000 off Ebay and just wondered if it is likely to have USB 2.0 (for the Wireless adapter). I did a google but couldnt find anything. I didnt have time to contact the vendor as the auction had only minutes to go and looked like a reasonable deal ( comes with Win XP re-installed and MS Office ) and just a very basic package, which is obviously what I was after. If anyone owns one or knows, I would be pleased to hear. thanks. Dean.

Yes it does. There are three in fact.

[serverguy]

Heres a review of one if you're interested.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4093

[dfr200764]

thanks serverguy. Very useful review ! The old Toshiba laptop that I mentioned does have a PCMCIA slot. Presumably if i got a Wireless card to fit, would it be able to access the internet ? More importantly, would I need more RAM as there is only 128MB at the moment ? I will probably be selling the laptop and having a wireless card would make it a bit easier to sell.

[dfr200764]

while I think of it, what is the difference between WIFI 802.11g and WIFI 802.11b ? I have seen both mentioned and do they have compatibility issues with an old laptop ( e.g. Pentium 3 processor ?)

thanks again

[serverguy]

Originally Posted by dfr200764

while I think of it, what is the difference between WIFI 802.11g and WIFI 802.11b ? I have seen both mentioned and do they have compatibility issues with an old laptop ( e.g. Pentium 3 processor ?)

thanks again

g is faster than b by about twice.

Not really any compatibility issues but I wouldn't spend more than a tenner on a card. Have a scrouge on eBay.