You could talk people into a dentist's chair with patter like that .

I'll look into it more deeply when my brain is fresher.

Happy new Rt-N66U

I had to get something better than the Virgin "Superhub" trash router.
The Black Knight works great for me; better since I updated the firmware - Firmware:3.0.0.4.372.30 (Merlin build)

I use an Asus USB-N53 - 300Mbps Dual Band Dongle for my main PC.
It's angled for max signal and the 5GHz comes in at 6dB to 8dB lower than the 2.4GHz.
The separation is about 9 feet through the floor, wood and plaster.
The 5GHZ strength tails off rapidly at longer distances.
Put a couple of stone walls in the way and 5GHz drops dramatically.
I also find that 5GHz is more vulnerable to outside interference, such that I rely on 2.4GHz mainly.

Well a few hours ago, after some annoying messing around, I got the USB-N53 working. To be honest, I'm not too impressed so far, but the jury is still out. I have a few things to look out for in terms of improvement, and was initially a little jaundiced by the problems getting going.

First, the Quick start instructions assume you have a CD drive. Wrong!

Second, they show you inserting the disc, then clicking Next on the first screen, followed by plugging the dongle into a USB port. Wrong! (Even if you had a drive).

To solve the first problem, I went to their website, and after a bit of messing about involving having to specify something more than once, arrived at a download page for the Utilities disc; the manual; and something else I haven't yet established what it is but it looks important. Maybe called by the setup routine, but shouldn't be a separate download if that's the case. Starts with Dr, so may be a "Doctor".

I find a setup.exe in a likely place in the utilities download.

As I want to get up and running, I click that. I then have to choose Driver only or Client Utilities and Driver. Looks like it was the right link to follow, so I go for CU & D.

Job runs and finishes. Odd - thinks I. It didn't tell me to plug the dongle (card) in. So I plug it in. It's blue light starts flashing, but it fails to appear in the available connections in Win 8.1.

Messed around a bit, then read the manual.

2. Installing the USB-N53 driver and utilities.

IMPORTANT: Install the ASUS USB-N53 WLAN card into your computer before installing the driver and utilities from the Support CD.

Grrrrreat!

There is a WLAN uninstall in the setup.exe folder. That does uninstall it so far as I can tell - I tried looking for left-over files but didn't find any.

Plug it in, run setup, bingo!

Except !

Performance dreadful, even though it shows a 144Mbps connection. Solved by a reboot of the laptop, which seems to have become rather confused by the above.

Speed tests seem to be 2Mbps down and several hundred kbps up higher than the 72.2Mbps of the inbuilt Atheros.

I'm not sure for normal use it's worth having a fragile dongle sticking out of the side of the laptop, and as I'm no longer a more than once a day man [cough], (not even once a day ), I rarely run speed tests. Only when there is something odd.

As advised by a few of you earlier, I have a (slightly) different SSID now for the 5GHz. Just a "5" at the end of the 2.4GHz one. Passwords are identical.

Interestingly, my Galaxy SIII detected the 5GHz but I had to give it the password. The iPad Air i found was using 5GHz anyway, but I've no idea when or how that happened. Maybe it was told by me at some time.

I've never been a fan of USB networking. Does the laptop have an ExpressCard slot? Is it a USB 2 or USB 3 port?

USB has always been a bit of a pain from the early days of USB2 with wired ethernet adaptors. It was always better to fit a card.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

As advised by a few of you earlier, I have a (slightly) different SSID now for the 5GHz. Just a "5" at the end of the 2.4GHz one. Passwords are identical.

This is only useful for diagnostics, as you can then tell when your laptop/phone/tablet has lost the 5GHz signal.

Interestingly, my Galaxy SIII detected the 5GHz but I had to give it the password. The iPad Air i found was using 5GHz anyway, but I've no idea when or how that happened. Maybe it was told by me at some time.

Yes, the S3 would need the password as its no idea they are the same network, iOS devices are the same, so I suspect you told it. They can only go by the full SSID and password.

There's one USB3 and two USB2.

I started off in the USB3 and it was in that I got it working. Then when I had the troubles I decided to swap to a USB2. A secondary reason being the router is at 10 o-clock from the laptop and 45 degrees up, with the USB2s being on the left and the USB3 on the right.

Nice, in USB3.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Nice, in USB3.

I can't remember your original WiFi result but that looks good!

your BQM looks nicer indeed.

whats funny is on interleaving you have lower latency than my fast path

It isn't interleaved now . I'll have to check back on the graphs to tell you accurately what happened when, but the new router made a difference.

Just connected my Asus RT-AC68U and PCE-AC68. Not very fast at the moment. Trying to work out how best to have it connected to my ISP.

Wifi connected at 1.3Gbps though.