Washing Wifi Cards

Over the past four years, I've gone through a number of wifi cards for my laptop. I believe that I'm currently on my 5th one. I typically buy the cheapest one available at Fry's, usually in the $20 range. The first 3 would constantly overheat and die. My fourth card died when the protruding end broke off. The reason the end snapped off was my fault. I jammed my laptop into my bag with the card still plugged in on a cross country flight. I was on my way to attend an industry certification class. The class ends with a 10 hour test in which I needed to use my laptop to be online wirelessly. So the night before the test I went to the local mall to hit up Radio Shack for a new card. The cheapest one they had was a Netgear WG511T for around $50. I initially hated paying that much, but I had to have it for the test. The wifi card works great and has never overheated. But there is another reason I recommend the Netgear card over the cheap ones. One morning I needed to send a work email first thing when I woke up. After I sent the email, I removed the card from the laptop. I did not want this card to break like my last one. When I removed the card, I put it in the pocket of my sweats. I then proceeded to take a shower and get ready for work. As you can guess my sweats ended up in the laundry and it happened to be the day my wife did laundry. About midday I got a call from my wife telling me that she found the card in the washing machine. My initial thought was that the card would never work again. I let the card sit for a few days to make sure it was completely dry. To my surprise, I plugged it in and it worked perfectly and has been working ever since. The card also has that freshly laundered smell. Now I just have to decide what electronic device to send through the spin cycle next. My laptop is looking kind of grungy. As a side note, I'm back to my old habit of leaving the card plugged when I put my laptop in my bag.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]