Resolved Wireless N USB Adapter?

Pardon what may be a "dumb" question but, if you have an old laptop running wireless G and you get a wireless N router with a wireless N USB adapter shouldn't that give your old laptop wireless N capabilities/speed?

 

How "Old" is old?

 

Laptop is about 5 years old. More important than just age of a computer, I wanted to gear my question more to the idea of going from wireless G to wireless N.

 

With an ‘N’ USB adapter yes you can connect at higher speeds thru a ‘N’ router.

But you’ll have to make sure that the N adapter and not the built in G is the one connecting.

2 ways to do that.
1> disable the G adapter or
2> Preferred method – go into network settings for the G adapter – properties – Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) - properties – advanced button – uncheck Automatic Metric and give the Interface metric a value of 20 or more (default is 10).

Computer uses adapter with lowest value.
When USB adapter is plugged in it'll get a default value of 10.
Computer will automatically switch over to it even if already connected.

Unplug it and will switch back to the G adapter.

Also be aware that router will default to speed of slowest protocol connected to it. So if any G devices connected-all speeds will be G.

 

You still need the wireless N adapter.

It was just another way of setting the N adapter up while also keeping the built in G adapter. Sometimes I find that useful.