Or, can the modules, and, I guess, the quality thereof, affect the strength and/or quality of the Internet connection?
I've been comparing the connections when in ms-winblows vs Slackware64.
It isn't scientific by any means, but I've been visiting the same sites, using the same software, i.e., browser, reading the same posts or playing the same videos, etc., etc., etc., all on the same box, i.e, the hardware is the same.
Unfortunately, in Slackware64 the connection appears to be inferior. By that I mean you can be, e.g., reading posts on a board such as this one and when you want to go back to the index page or "turn the page" the connections appears to have stalled or disappeared and you have to wait several seconds for it to come back to life, if it comes back at all. Sometimes it reappears after hitting the 'refresh' button. Doesn't matter if I'm using networkmanager or wicd, the results are the same.
In ms-winblows this not a problem. The signal is there and you can move to the next page immediately.
Is there a fix for this?
Thanks.

Bugs in a wireless driver or firmware may indeed affect connectivity, and even system stability at times. Just a few weeks ago I had to replace an Intel card. Sometimes it would become really slow or stop working altogether, and one time it crashed the OS. Sometimes it would wake up from sleep and refuse to report stats. Newer kernel seemed to make it more stable, but not all the way. AR9285 I have right now is purrfect.

Remember too, that all the drivers for the wireless stuff had all had to be reverse engineered, so they're not going to work quite as well sometimes. Naturally it's always best to find hardware that at least sort of makes an attempt to be Linux friendly. I like TP Link stuff so far, though I too don't have the best 'signal' and I'm in a mobile home (the walls are thin!) and literally if one were to look at the router as a straight line from my adapter - it's only 12 feet away - and I get an average signal strength of 80% (the router is an N router also, as is the adapter, both TP Link).

I've learned to live with it. It was easy...I've been stuck on dial-up since ~1994 and now that I have satellite, I'm not gonna complain, heh.