Reddit reviews Edimax EW-7811UTC AC600 Dual-Band USB Adapter, Mini Size Easy to Carry, Supports Both 11AC ( 5GHz Band ) and 11n ( 2.4GHz Band ) Wi-Fi Connectivity, Upgrades your PC / Laptop for Exceeding Streaming and Faster Download

Just going to piggy back this comment., since he asked for something with "wireless features" that most people seem to miss on the builds and people that don't build sometimes think are expensive.

$8 USB bluetooth 4.0 dongle

$17 usb wireless ac dualband adapter

so the added wireless features comes to an additional $25. Frankly the most expensive part that tends to get left out of these builds is the bluray drive which go for $40 or so, but those are all but completely outdated for modern pc use via streaming/steam/etc.

> Edimax EW-7811UTC

He isn't using the onboard wifi

Yes, there are multiple USB WiFi adapters that will work with Linux. I just received a EDIMAX AC600 for a small work project that came with the Linux drivers on CD.

A co-worker also purchased an [Alpha Long-Range AC1200] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VEEBOPG/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_4tklDbRERW39Y) and has it working with Kali.

By no means is this an extensive list, but just a couple that I've seen success with in the past few days alone.

I use the edimax AC wireless. I get 60 mb/s download over wifi on speedtest.net, 80 mb/s connection.

You need 802.11ac on both the router and the laptop to get wireless speeds over 70MBPS. http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/wireless80211/a/aa80211standard.htm I just went through this same problem when I was upgraded to Blast 105. My wireless router could do the 5Ghz 802.11ac but my laptops couldn't connect at 5Ghz so I bought two tiny usb wifi adapters and now I can connect fine. http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FW6T36Y/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've got a handful of these and they work great in Raspbian and OpenELEC. However, there's a faster one from Edimax, but it's much bigger in size.

I have this one and it works just fine: http://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811UTC-Dual-Band-Connectivity-Exceeding/dp/B00FW6T36Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1426701075&sr=8-2&keywords=edimax+ac+usb

I had exactly the same problem, SB 512Gb i7.

Router is Linksys WRT 1900 AC

Solved the problem by buying a cheap Edimax AC Wireless adapter (AC 600)
http://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811UTC-Dual-Band-Connectivity-Exceeding/dp/B00FW6T36Y

Now my ping is back at 2-3 ms, with the default wifi adapter i had 1ms and spikes 200-300 ms while pinging my router.

I did a lot of research and could not find anything else that works, now I have to carry a dongle with my 3K$ laptop to play LOL....

You have a choice.

• Option 1: USB WiFi adapter like this. Generally cheap and crappy, but you just plug it in to a USB port.
  
• Option 2: PCIe WiFi adapter like this. Costs a little more, sucks less, and you have to install it inside your computer.
  
• Option 3: An external WiFi bridge like this. Costs more, sucks a LOT less, you will need to buy an ethernet cable to go between the bridge and your computer.
  
  

OP could use one of these http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WDR3500-Wireless-Router-300Mbps/dp/B0098QV038

Throw in a cheap 5ghz adapter if the client computer doesn't have it built in:

http://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811UTC-Dual-Band-Connectivity-Exceeding/dp/B00FW6T36Y

$55 for dual-band is quite a deal.

I'm using Edimax AC600 along with this driver. I can allocate a 40MHz channel and get a top link speed of 200 Mbps (there's only one spatial stream supported). Actual speeds are around 60-75 Mbps. I'm using two of these (one for 2.4GHz, one for 5GHz) for running an access point with hostapd, and it works pretty well for just getting a network up and running.

It appears that Edimax AC1200 nano with this driver might be able to support two spatial streams, but I don't have this USB adapter and can't confirm this.

It looks pretty solid, I wish I could suggest something other than the 380x, but there aren't a lot of options in that price range right now. If there was a RX 470 or GTX 1050, those would probably be better, but they're vaporware right now. You could look around in /r/hardwareswap if you don't mind getting a used GPU for now, and upgrading it again later, that could possibly save you $50-80 or so.

>I really want an SSD to give myself faster boots and faster load times when I play games.

Great decision. 250GB is enough for windows + a few games. If you upgrade in the future, you can reuse that 250 as just a boot drive, and get another drive for other things. For now, as you say...

>I do have a medium-sized music library (~10,000 songs), but I feel like that's something that can go on an external hard drive, right? (I have a 1 TB external hard drive already.)

Media will stream just fine off of a USB 2.0 5200RPM external drive. I don't trust those to be on all the time, however (my computer is on 24/7). I dump less-used things onto a couple of 1TB WD Passport external drives.

If you wanted to make upgrades in the future a little easier from the start, you could get a second not-quite-as-great SSD and install games/music/whatever onto that. Something like this $38 Kingston 128GB. Make that secondary, put junk on it. When you want to change that out with a 512GB one down the road it'll be a little easier since you can just swap the secondary drive, copy the stuff back, and leave the boot drive alone. Everything will just work as it did before as long as the new drive ends up using the same driveletter as the old one.

I have a 250GB 850 EVO as my boot & basic apps drive and a 512GB BX100 Corsair for games/frequently used media/everything else - with less used media on external 1TB 2.5" drives.


>I would like to have a wifi card.

I just got one of these $15 Edimax EW-7811UTC AC600, and it's working just fine for me, especially at that price. I'm sure the PCIe one would be better, but I didn't have a spare PCIe on the mini-itx board I was using.

Use this in the desktop. Cheap and better than the one you got. not for range but for speed. https://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811UTC-Dual-Band-Connectivity-Exceeding/dp/B00FW6T36Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477958634&sr=8-1&keywords=edimax+ac600

Either of these will fix the problem in seconds and given the frequency with which they FU the wifi it's worth the investment.

I really like the nano size, best 20 bucks I ever spent.
https://www.amazon.com/Edimax-Adapter-Supports-MU-MIMO-EW-7822ULC/dp/B01MY7PL10/

https://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811UTC-Dual-Band-Connectivity-Exceeding/dp/B00FW6T36Y/
Even with this I get my full subscribed Internet speed although its a bit larger.

You should be able to revert to the previous OS within 30 days under Recovery (if you haven't run Disk Cleanup and removed Windows.old) ... It works pretty good although I have had to fix a couple things after doing that in the past. I haven't looked at this option with the CU build.

Phoneix PCI Express to Dual 20 Pin USB 3.0 PCI-e X1 to 2 ports 19pin USB3.0 Header Support Low Profile Bracket

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079HTXMKH/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_I6t2CbMDJC1PK

and

JSER Vertical Dual USB 3.0 A Type Female to Motherboard 20 Pin Box Header Slot Adapter PCBA

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015HKX1ZI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_A9t2CbM06BRXJ

and

Edimax EW-7811UTC AC600 Dual-Band USB Adapter, Mini Size Easy to Carry, Supports Both 11AC ( 5GHz Band ) and 11n ( 2.4GHz Band ) Wi-Fi Connectivity, Upgrades your PC / Laptop for Exceeding Streaming and Faster Download


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FW6T36Y/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_J-t2Cb57W4VCN

Ah, then that's what I've been doing. Different channels don't really seem to have an effect. I think I'll just be ordering another adapter instead.

Thanks for the help, though! I appreciate it.

something like this would be just fine https://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811UTC-Dual-Band-Connectivity-Exceeding/dp/B00FW6T36Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1467207736&sr=8-2&keywords=5ghz+wifi

This is the one I have connected to my raspberry pi running rasplex.
detected oob, and works works without stuttering on everything ive tried (up to 720p)
http://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811UTC-Dual-Band-Connectivity-Exceeding/dp/B00FW6T36Y/ref=pd_sim_147_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=4168aRZrQ7L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=16C2TYNANKHSYJTHBKFX

Here's Barbara Bowman's $14 suggestion for the wifi issues. You'll probably need a multiport adapter for the BT.