Can you use a USB WiFi dongle for better WiFi even with an existing WiFi card in your computer?

[dekw04]

Hi everyone.

My laptop has a built-in WiFi card (Realtek RTL8822BE 802.11ac PCIe Adapter).

Can I use a USB WiFi dongle to improve my laptop’s WiFi reception or is it pointless since my laptop already has a WiFi card built in?

I believe my laptop has an up-to-date WiFi card built into it, but I’ve seen some USB WiFi dongles and many of them come with a pretty substantial antenna on them like the one:

http://s1149.photobucket.com/user/d...-03-23_214824_zps9jjoa5ea.png.html?sort=3&o=0

If I used a USB WiFi dongle like the one in the link above, would it even work since my laptop already has a built-in WiFi card? For instance, would any WiFi drivers required to run the USB WiFi dongle interfere with the WiFi drivers that run my laptop’s built-in WiFi card?

I know these are a lot of questions to answer, but I thought it made sense to put them all in one place and I didn’t find answers to these questions anywhere else.

The essence of my question though is this: Would it be beneficial for me to get a USB WiFi dongle like the one shown in the link above in order to improve my laptop’s WiFi reception even though my laptop already has a built-in WiFi card?

Thank you.

 

[_Pete_]

There is nothing to stop you using a dongle instead of your internal wifi card. When you install the dongle's drivers the software should disable your internal wifi and your computer will use the external dongle. If it doesn't disable your internal card you can manually disable it by going into "device manager" and clicking disable this device. I haven't used a dongle for a while but every dongle that I have used has disabled the internal wifi. If you decide you would rather use the internal card after all you can disable the dongle and re-enable the internal card.

I don't know whether an external dongle with an antenna wil be any better than your internal card. generally speaking wifi on computers is pretty much rubbish whatever you use. It is badly affected by walls, distance and even furniture in the way of the signal. the only way to know is to try it. Of course that means buying the dongle which could well be redundant after trials. The other downside to a dongle with an antenna is you will have a great big ugly thing hanging off the side of your laptop.