wifi cards : solution to get them working?

[shep]

Originally Posted by bsd-keith

You'll find it much easier & quicker just to buy a compatible USB wifi device...

I've found that most TP-Link wifi that I have bought work as urtwn.

There are online databases where you can search for the chipset ID:

https://deviwiki.com/

Two caveats: You need an exact match between the OpenBSD driver and the device.
For example, there are a number of rtl8188xx devices and OpenBSD only supports a few.

Secondly, The manufacturers are notorious for changing chipsets. For example. Someone mentioned the EdiMax EW-7326Ig. There are 2 versions with 2 different realtek chipsets:

https://deviwiki.com/wiki/Edimax_EW-7326Ig_v1
https://deviwiki.com/wiki/Edimax_EW-7326Ig_v2

One last comment about USB dongles vs internal mini pci-e cards: The internal cards have small jacks that attach to an internal antennae. The internal cards have significantly more range. Wif cards step down the send/receive speeds if signal strength is poor.