Upgrade D150 Wifi to 11n?

Hi,

I was wondering if it's possible to upgrade the wireless networking in a D150 to 802.11n (draft 2.0)? Is there a mini-PCI card that can be swapped in?

Thanks,
Jim

 

does this help? viewtopic.php?f=40&t=1443

 

Hi,

Thanks, but i think that post/thread must be for a different model? The D150 that I have has 3 doors on the bottom, for memory, hard drive, and, I believe, the wireless card.

Do you know if the Intel 4965AGN card mentioned in that other thread would work with the D150 that I have?

Thanks,
Jim

 

I have a D150 and used an Intel 5100 card I picked up on eBay for $10.
It is a newer card, but only uses 2 antennas.
Some people are using the Intel 5300. Which costs more, and uses 3 antennas
Read about them here. http://www.intel.com/network/connectivity/products/wireless/adapters/5000/index.htm

 

MYUSERNAME,

THANKS for that info! I'll try to find one of those (either the 5100 or 5300.

Have you used your wireless with the 5100 with a Draft 2.0 11n wireless router? What kind of speeds are you getting?

Also, with the 3 antenna card (the 5300), I found a page (don't have the link though) mentioning that you can just connect the two existing antenna wires, leaving the additional antenna connector unconnected, rather than having to add an additional antenna, which I gather would have to be installed in the display bezel.

Does anyone know if that works ok?

Thanks,
Jim

 

Hi,

Is this the 5100?

http://download.intel.com/network/conne ... 319981.pdf

I'm assuming that the half-height one is the one, but I just looked at the wifi card in my D150, and it looks like it's a different shape than the half-height card on that link (the one in mine looks like it's "longer" and narrower than the picture in the above link, and is covered with a metal shield)? In other words, the card in my AOD150 looks like the edge connector is along the narrower side of the card.

Thanks,
Jim

 

[Deleted]

 

Hi,

I happen to have an HP DV9930US laptop, which has an Intel 4965agn mini-PCIe card, so, as a test, I swapped that into my AOD150 tonight, and it works, and was automatically recognized by WinXP, and installed the driver. I got ~130mbps with it in the AOD150!!

I've written a couple of the sellers of the Intel 5300 cards on Ebay, because some of the auctions specifically say "no netbooks". So far, one has said "I don't know." ... Still waiting for a couple more. I'm thinking of upgrading both the DV9930US and the AOD150, because the Intel 4965agn won't use 40Mhz channels on 2.4Ghz, whereas the 5300 does. Hoping to get ~300mbps on both ...

Will post back.

Later,
Jim

 

[Deleted]

 

Hi,

Your timing is PERFECT. As it happened, that Ebay seller was one I had asked, and I just got an email back from him (her?) this weekend saying that it would work with my AOD150.

A little Off-topic: I actually am looking for TWO 11n mini-PCIe cards. One for my AOD150, and one for my HP DV9930US. That Ebay listing specifically says "not for HP". Do you happen to know if the cards that he sells definitely don't work with HP laptops? Is it because HP locks the wifi cards? I was hoping to get both cards from the same place.

Thanks again,
Jim

 

[Deleted]

 

Hi,

I may do as you suggested (try one in the HP first), but since I just got my 1st 11n router recently, I've been doing some throughput testing, and while it's nice seeing "300mbps" in Windows, I haven't been that impressed by the throughput testing results that I've seen thus far with 11g vs. 11n (~22-25Mbps vs. ~27-29Mbps). I'm glad to see SOME improvement, but I guess that I'm running up against my ISPs maximum throughput. I don't do much in-house file transfers (prefer to just copy to a USB stick or eSATA hard drive), so other than the "cool" effect, I'm starting to question the cost effectiveness of upgrading all of my computers to 11n.

Anyway, sorry for "going on (and on)...", and thanks for your help!

Jim

 

[Deleted]

 

Hi,

FYI, I received the Intel 5300 card this past Friday, and it seems to be working fine in my D150. A couple of things:

- The wireless button and LED on the D150 still works, even after I replaced the original pci-E card with the 5300
- Since the 5300 card has 3 antenna connectors, while the D150 only has 2 antennas, I connected just the antennas two outer connectors.

The 5300 that I bought off of Ebay came with 3 antennas, but I'm not sure if I want to open up the D150 to add the 3rd antenna.

I'm using the latest Intel Proset software (drivers and management app), and while I get 300mbps when the D150 starts up, the speed fluctuates a LOT, down to ~60mbps. I've done a couple of speed tests, and I'm getting ~12-20Mbps, so it doesn't seem that much better than the original 11g.

I tested with both a 2.4Ghz Buffalo 11n router and a Netgear 5Ghz 11n router.

Jim