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From: Paul <nospam@needed.invalid>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.repair,alt.comp.hardware
Subject: Re: Chinese or Realtek; can't connect with wifi
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2025 15:20:05 -0500
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On Fri, 2/28/2025 2:00 PM, Marco Moock wrote:
> Am 27.02.2025 09:49 Uhr schrieb micky:
> 
>> The LAN card is made in China by a company I've never heard of but its
>> entry in Device Manage says Realtek.  Is it really Realtek?
> 
> Most likely. They could forge the device ID, but then the driver would
> have trouble operating the chip.
> 
> Realtek is a cheap mass product, but a reliable one.
> 

They can make an adapter for $10 retail, with an actual
RealTek chip inside it (not even an RF metal cover over
the active circuits). Why would you need to make a fake ?

Any Wifi without a Bipolar PA after the MAC chip,
we don't really know how long those will last. The companies
that make the unreliable ones, certainly don't worry their
pretty heads about failures. There is an issue with CMOS PAs
losing the will to live after three months of operation,
which could be an electromigration failure (high current,
high temperature, high frequency). I would expect an Intel AX,
the people making that should have some electromigration
data to make a judgement on the wisdom of their design.
Companies which are "fabless", less so.

It has also been noticed, that the output power level of
cheap Wifi adapters, seems to vary a bit when they are
brand new. If you bought two, one would reach the basement
router, and the other would not. Then, after three months,
there would be more separation in performance, between
winners and losers.

We don't have a lot of sites now, to review these things for us.
Some useful sites shut down. In one case, the guy doing the
work, was getting sick of doing it :-) which is the best reason
to quit, if you need to quit.

   Paul