Upon closer inspection of the specification of the m.2 wifi adapter that came with the unit I discovered that it was in fact using a PCIe lane.

If your router is having trouble delivering a strong Wi-Fi signal to certain areas of your home but you loathe the thought of switching between differently named networks for different parts of your house, the Netgear EAX15 can help. It’s easy to install, and you can use it to create a mesh-like network without buying a whole new mesh system, since it supports single-SSID naming for seamless roaming. It also supports the latest Wi-Fi 6 technology, and it delivered solid performance on the 5GHz band in our testing. Who It's For Make sure that your know the polarity. It is common, that + is on the inside, but some adapters might differ. The power adapters polarity should be written on the label. In doubt, use a multimeter. If you know you don't need Wi-Fi 6, but still need a reliable way to extend a network that sees frequent use from multiple data-intensive streams at a time, the Nighthawk X4 is one of your best options.vmnic4 0000:05:00.1 igb Up Down 0 Half 00:1b:21:93:b3:b3 1500 Intel Corporation 82576 Gigabit Network Connection

Dual NVMe PCIe Adapter, RIITOP (2 Ports) M.2 NVMe SSD to PCI-e Express 3.1 x8 Expansion Add-on Card My NUC currently runs with VMware ESXi 6.0.0 build-2494585 ( Setup Howto). The card has been detected without any further modification.What makes range extenders so attractive compared with a bespoke mesh system is that they are easy to install and inexpensive. When paired with a budget-priced router, you can build a tandem system with coverage that rivals what you'd get from a single high-priced router or mesh network. Range extenders come in various shapes, sizes, and speeds, but they do have their limitations; they are typically half as fast as your primary router, and they create a separate extended network that makes seamless roaming difficult. M.2 is also known as Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF). It is a specification for internally mounted computer expansion cards. It is the successor to the mSATA standard, which uses the PCIe Mini Card physical card layout and connectors. M.2 is a very flexible standard that allows different module sizes and various interfaces. As M.2 cards are available in many possible variations, they are divided into different Form Factors and Keys. vmnic0 0000:00:19.0 e1000e Up Up 100 Full b8:ae:ed:75:08:68 1500 Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (3) I218-LM

vmnic1 0000:04:00.0 igb Up Down 0 Half 00:1b:21:93:b3:b0 1500 Intel Corporation 82576 Gigabit Network Connection Some words about the performance. The NUCs M.2 slot is based on PCI Express (PCIe) Revision Gen2 and has 2 lanes (X2). Each lane supports a data transfer speed of 5.0 GT/s (Gigatransfers per second). To get the actual usable bandwidth, you have to take into account that PCIe Gen 2 uses a 8b10b encoding which means that it requires 10bits, to transfer 1 byte (8 bits). vmnic3 0000:05:00.0 igb Up Down 0 Half 00:1b:21:93:b3:b2 1500 Intel Corporation 82576 Gigabit Network Connection Of course, this is in no way a supported configuration. It's only for engineering purposes. I can't guarantee that it will work, or that it don't break your components.Not all 5th Gen Intel NUCs have the same M.2 slot but the slot I am mainly talking about in this post is available on all NUCs. It's the slot where you add the M.2 SSD. Only one NUC, the NUC5i5MYHE provides a second M.2 slot (Which provides a differnt key). Instead of the second M.2 slot the other NUCs have a presoldered WiFi module. Still, maybe the fastest possible throughput is what you're after. That could be because you're running business applications across your network, or because you're in the market for a gaming router or especially a Wi-Fi 6 router. If so, be sure to test the connection between your endpoints to ensure you're getting the maximum traffic speeds you can. PCMag thoroughly tests all routers and range extenders that come through its doors so you'll have a good idea of what to expect before you buy. (Credit: Linksys) Unfortunately, the 5th Gen NUC does no longer have a Mini PCIe slot. Instead it has M.2 slots. An easy solution would be a M.2 NIC, but until today there are no such cards available. In this post I will explain the possibilities to use PCIe cards with the M.2 slot to upgrade the 5th Gen NUC with additional NICs or other cards like Fibre Channel HBAs.

Whereas range extenders communicate with the router via the 2.4GHz or 5GHz radio bands, most Wi-Fi system satellites use mesh technology to talk to the router, and to each other. Each node serves as a hop point for other nodes in the system, which helps the nodes farthest from the router to deliver a strong Wi-Fi signal as they talk to other nodes and don't rely on one-to-one communications with the router. The Key E slot is used for a WiFi adapter. The Key B ports is typcially used for a M.2 SSD. But according to the specification, they should theoretically provide the following interfaces:Maximum numbers of M.2 SSD support will vary, depending on different CPU specs and PCIe bifurcation settings in different ASUS motherboards. Please see the FAQ link for further information: Usage restrictions: PCIe 4.0 has high requirements on the equipment. As long as the extension cable is connected, the signal will be attenuated. This product does not guarantee the full speed of PCI-E 4.0. The equipment is aging. If the signal is poor or the environment is not good, please slow down to PCIe 3.0 or lower. The P14S-P14FP adapter has a Key B interfaces which is available on all 5th gen NUCs. It converts the M.2 slot to a PCIe X4 slot where you can insert your PCIe network adapter.