Broken Wireless Antenna Please Help!!

squelchy69

My brother has very kindly given my son a PC for his bedroom. In order to get it connected to the internet upstairs, I bought a wireless router (thanks to advice from onether MSE's - cheers guys!) This was working great downstairs and ok upstairs but showing a low strength, sometimes no signal. My brother looked at the back of the PC upstairs and noticed that the wireless antenna thingy (sorry for the very untechnical term) had broken and he thought this was probably why the signal is so low. He wiggled it about a bit and tried to fix it but now we cannot get it working at all. We have looked on the net but cannot see another antenna to buy.
The PC is a Philips Freeline S2200 desktop. We can'e even find a replacement on the Philips website. Can anyone help us?
Where can we buy one and if we can't is there any alternative? Thanks in advance for any responses, we are not very technically minded.........
Jo x

Browntoa

you proabably need to replace the whole card, just open the PC , unplug the old one, plug in the new one and turn on and install the software on the CD (unless the instructions in the box tell you different)

http://www.broadbandstuff.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=515

and just noticed ...this is my 10.000 post

squelchy69

thanks for that. is the link you sent me the exact one to buy, or an example? sorry, i'm a bit dumb with technology. if its the right one, i will buy it now and ask my brother to have a go at putting it in.
cheers.

Browntoa

you could buy that one but any PCI wireless card will do

you are looking for at least 802.11g

squelchy69

you're very helpful. i will pop to PC World tomorrow and get one. My son is desperate to get on the net! And I look forward to being able to get on my own PC without a fight! I take it that its pretty easy to do, I will get my brother to follow your instructions. Watch this space.

zenmaster

You will pay a lot more for it at PC World. The cheapest I card can see is this one which is £35 in store (or you could do collect and store for £18.39).

You might also consider one of these which simply plugs into a USB port and does not require installation into the computer. Be careful that you get a network adapter and not a bluetooth adapter as they look the same from the pictures (though they might be different sizes in reality).

That, again, is overpriced but not too bad if you want one in a hurry.

squelchy69

thanks so much for your help everyone. i will have a look around and see what prices i can come up with. didnt really want to spend a lot. already had to buy the router. (did buy one on ebay but it didnt work, then an ethernet cable.) This is working out quite expensive for me so far..........i do like to do things on a budget. hope son appreciates it!