upgrading laptops to Wireless N

[caveman_nige]

Has anybody successfully changed the internal wifi cards on their laptops to the N series ones that are available.. Some of mine use min pci express and i see you can buy them for about ?30 - ?35.... but before i give it whirl am curious if anybody else has already done this and did they work after. I understand that i may have to make changes to the 'whitelist' for the bios to accept them but thats no problem...

[Curious123]

Wether it is easy or difficult would depend on the laptop and where the wifi module is located on the laptop. Our work uses Dell for its pc and these are very easy to work on as Dell provide a very good Service manual to remove almost any component on the pc. Find whereabouts your wifi is located on your pc and see if it is removeable before going out and buying the N card.

[caveman_nige]

i know where they are physically located thats no problem as have stripped down hundreds of the suckers over the years.. I use thinkpads but do have two Dells to do afterwards... so takeing the old g card out and replacing it with an N is the easy bit, its after that is what i am curious about.. whether the existing antennae and software will work (after the bios mod if required) etc etc..

If I know it will work then i will upgrade my router etc.. but if they don't work then i will not waste money uprading to a N series router...

[Curious123]

Once you actually managed to remove the old wifi and install the N wif card than the only other worry would be loading the correct drivers into your OS. I always try to make sure I have the latest BIOS loaded for my pc's if it is available but I didn't think they would bring out a BIOS upgrade unless they had a problem with the N card on their pc.

[caveman_nige]

agreed generally the latest bios should be fine as you say, but their is a device list buried in a bios known as a 'whitelist' and if you install a later wifi card which is not on the list you get a bios error. this exists on many different brands... there are ways round these, well for thinkpads I know there is...

Each PCI device has a unique string describing the vendor and product. Many also have a "subsystem id", a further string which allows two slightly different variants of a product to be differentiated. The Thinkpad BIOS reads those numbers off the device in the mini PCI slot and checks them against an internal list. If they appear on the list, the machine boots. If they don't, the following message is displayed and the machine refuses to boot: 1802 Unauthorized network card is plugged in. Power off and remove the Mini PCI network card.


I thinking about buying one and seeing how it goes but need an N series network to test it on... so at each turn its little risk but i could just send it back if it doesn't work..

[nevovx]

I would assume this to be the case before, as now even the memory / HD bays are easily accessible on most laptops as in companies expect end users to install additional hardware. So pretty much i think bios should be fine.

As long as the connection to the motherboard is compatible all you would do is install the drivers at most unless N card has extra cables other then aux & main.

[chroma]

ive done it myself, ive also upgraded MXM video cards too which is another story entirely.

I simply unplugged the mini pci card, desoldered the antenna solder joint and fitted the new one.
The only headache i had was the antenna point, it was different on the new card and the wire would not reach, so i had to strip down the entire laptop and run more wire to compensate.

I didnt even need to muck around with the bios which was nice.

Another option is to use an express card adaptor if your not too confident.

[caveman_nige]

I have just bought an N series mini PCIe card for ?13, bargain i thought.. Its an intel which is the same as my laptops so should be ok, will just do one lappy for now though.. I note this card has three antennae points against the standard two on a G card so will look into that as I go along, however if i need to feed an additional antennae through the lappy thats not problem for me, just more time on my tools..

[caveman_nige]

Ok, so i got the card and installed it my lappy and received the expected post error saying unknown device device will not boot etc..

I found some fella on the tinternet who modifies bios flashes to remove the whitelist problem.. He gave me a link to his files and i flashed my lappy with one og his modifed bios and it worked.. my 3.5 year old lappy (still more powerful than most you can buy off the shelf new and way too good to replace, until a find a spare ?2+k) is now running with a Intel 4695agn card.. will now do my other lappies and looking into my wifi gaming adapters/bridges, and it is now worth upgrading my router..

[nevovx]

Congrats m8, give us a tutorial / info on that 3rd cable connection incase u get any problems , advantages / disadvantages.

[caveman_nige]

seems the third antennae connection is not an issue unless you want to take advantage of the extended range offered by an N network.. I have no need for it so will not bother for now.. I do have a spare antennae to put in that I stripped from a knackered toshiba..

[-Hox-]

Hey Nige, I installed an Intel 4695agn in my laptop a while ago, and it booted fine... only thing is, it still only operates at 54mbps which is what the old card was good for! I can't find anything on the net - how did you get around it?!

I'm on windows 7 32bit if it makes any difference.

Cheers mate!

[chroma]

Hey Nige, I installed an Intel 4695agn in my laptop a while ago, and it booted fine... only thing is, it still only operates at 54mbps which is what the old card was good for! I can't find anything on the net - how did you get around it?!

I'm on windows 7 32bit if it makes any difference.

Cheers mate!

Is it configured in the driver/adaptor settings to run explicitly on N mode? AFAIK they all default to G because G is standardised whilst N is merely a draft spec.

Bear in mind that you need your router to perform at the same N spec as your adaptor. Idealy both shoul;d perfoorm on both 2.4 and 5 GHz frrequencies but some are limited to the palin old 2.4 frequencies limiting throughput.

[-Hox-]

Cheers Chroma. I've got a Netgear WNR384B router (couple of years old) which runs on the 2.4 freq... It can transmit up to 270mbps, but I can't get anything over 54mbps!

I'm not too savy when it comes to this kind of thing, so I apologise if I'm being a bit stupid!

I tried several different drivers last night, none of which made any difference.

[chroma]

its not the actual driver thats bad its the driver setting.

like i said most default to G mode you need to tell it to run in N mode.

Under settings/network connections/[your wifi connection/configure (a button under the card name)/advanced then you just need to change ad hoc and wireless modes to default to N