to wifi or not to wifi, that is the question lol

[Burned_Follower]

i'm doing a complete rebuild of my pc and after nearly a month of research of the changes i want to make, it looks like the only parts i'm keeping from my original build is my CPU(i7 8700k) and my motherboard.

this is a link to the motherboard that i have:
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813144115?item=N82E16813144115

I've been a welder for 13 years and I'm getting into school this year to switch trades(my goal is to get a BS in mechanical engineering) and my pc is going to be used a lot for online school, gaming in 4k, 120hz, HDR, on my OLED CX that i just got, and for school, i'll be running CAD programs such as blender, Solid Works, and because i also have a music hobby, it'll continue using my DAW program called Reaper.

I have a pretty good idea of what kind of parts i need to build a pc. I built the one i have right now and built two others over the last 13 years.

however, my sister made a deal with me where she's letting me stay at her house rent free(in exchange for doing some stuff for her)while i'm in school so i can quit my welding job and just continue doing door dash on the side so i can be free to spend 10hrs a day doing nothing but classes/homework so i can get my online education done as fast as possible.

however, despite just getting a good internet connection, she won't let me run my 50 foot ethernet cable across the house for better internet speeds lol(and i don't blame her, it's kinda tacky) but she'll let me pay a professional to run the cable through the walls to my room if need be. however she wants me to experiment with wifi technology first before running ethernet through the walls.

as you can see, my motherboard isn't wifi capable. and there are three ways i know i can fix this:

1. get one of those USB wifi flash drive looking things at best buy or

2. install a pcie WIFI card

3. replace the motherboard with one that's got wifi

but even then, i tested the signal strength using my laptop and my smart phone(because i haven't unpacked my pc yet) in my room vs the living room where the router/modem is at and i'm getting an average of 74 mbps download speed with a ping of 17 in the room of the router/modem...but in my room i get an average of 17-25mbps download speed with a ping in the 30s.

and what's strange is that i'm paying for up to 300mbps at xfinity, and i even got like a boost feature with the deal. we just set up the internet yesterday and we are working with xfinity to solve this issue to see what's going on.

for gaming purposes i'm trying to get the ping in my room to under 20 and trying to get my money's worth of download speed.

...so my question is, would i be wasting my money doing the usb wifi option or possibly the pcie wifi option or should i just get the internet cord run it through the walls and call it a day?

oh incase you're wondering, my modem/router is the Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 Cable Modem Router

i'm trying to see if i can get away with using wifi before spending the money to have ethernet run through the walls of the house

 

[J Macker]

I'm impressed at your 17-25 Mbps wifi speed & latency under 30 already. For me, wifi wasn't reliable enough to stream 1080p from my fileserver, so I had to install cat 6.

Running ethernet is actually super easy. You don't need to hire anybody to do it. It's easier to go underneath in the crawlspace rather than deal with crawling on rafters & dealing with blown-in fiberglass insulation in the attic. At least, that's been my experience. All you need is a 36" or longer drill bit and the drill, along with a length of wire. I've added network jacks to the kitchen, dining room, living room, basement & bedrooms in my 1979 house.

An alternate method is to use network over powerline adapters. I can't attest to their speed though. Supposedly they're good. The main benefit is you just plug them into the outlets and there's no need to run new wires.

Nothing will be as fast as hardwired cat 6 though.

oh, and Pics of sis?

 

[Col_Temp]

I'm with J Macker on this.
And yes Comcast says you have 300 MBps but in reality you will almost never get anywhere close to that. Between congestion on the network, WiFi limitations and all the translations, dropped packets, etc... Your speed will always be way reduced.

If you sting wires use your crawl space or attic to handle most of the wiring. Most of the time you only really need one or two locations wired. A small hole to drop the wire through is good enough. If you want nice looking then drill the top plate and drop the wire between the studs. And wire to the plate in the wall. Then use a patch cable to connect with.
I understand your desire to not have to run cable but really its not that hard and usually not that expensive to find some college networking student who will do it for $15 to $20 a hour. Should take you more than an hour or two anyway. Lots of times run one wire from where your internet drop is to another room. Connect a switch there and run wire externally tot he rooms nearby if you have to have more than one location.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.