Can I replace the external Wi Fi antenna for my ASUS B550 - E motherboard with dual band antennas?

[Tragicdice]

As the title suggests, is it ok to replace the ugly shark fin antenna with a screw on dual antenna like this? https://www.amazon.com/Antenna-Pigtail-Wireless-Routers-Repeater/dp/B07R21LN5P/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=wifi+antenna&qid=1647400028&sprefix=wi+fi+an%2Caps%2C178&sr=8-6.

 

The one that comes with the motherboard is an eye sore and it always falls over from the lightest knock/touch.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

3 minutes ago, Tragicdice said:

The one that comes with the motherboard is an eye sore and it always falls over from the lightest knock/touch.

I wonder if this is a time hot glue would be welcomed by Steve from GN...

[Tragicdice]

1 minute ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I wonder if this is a time hot glue would be welcomed by Steve from GN...

So is it ok to use dual band antennas? I'm not gluing an antenna to my desk or top of my case lol.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Tragicdice said:

As the title suggests, is it ok to replace the ugly shark fin antenna with a screw on dual antenna like this? https://www.amazon.com/Antenna-Pigtail-Wireless-Routers-Repeater/dp/B07R21LN5P/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=wifi+antenna&qid=1647400028&sprefix=wi+fi+an%2Caps%2C178&sr=8-6.

 

The one that comes with the motherboard is an eye sore and it always falls over from the lightest knock/touch.

You can replace them with coat hangers if you want to. Might lose some range.  The way antennas work is they're tuned via length to a preferred bandwidth.  In the 80’s stub antennas became very popular because what they did to make them was wind a bunch of very thin wire in a big coil.  They could compress a really long antenna into a really small space that way.   But they were still of very exact length.  You can use an antenna that is the wrong length,it just doesn’t work as well.

[Tragicdice]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

You can replace them with coat hangers if you want to. Might lose some range.  The way antennas work is they're tuned via length to a preferred bandwidth.  In the 80’s stub antennas became very popular because what they did to make them was wind a bunch of very thin wire in a big coil.  They could compress a really long antenna into a really small space that way.   But they were still of very exact length.  You can use an antenna that is the wrong length,it just doesn’t work as well.

Ok so there shouldn't be a problem using the dual band antennas?

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Tragicdice said:

Ok so there shouldn't be a problem using the dual band antennas?

They should likely function. Radio is radio.  How well they will function I can’t say though.

[Tragicdice]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

They should likely function. Radio is radio.  How well they will function I can’t say though.

I saw a thread ages ago saying that using dual band antennas can burn out the card or something, is this an issue and it won't damage the built in card or anything?

[Bombastinator]

Just now, Tragicdice said:

I saw a thread ages ago saying that using dual band antennas can burn out the card or something, is this an issue and it won't damage the built in card or anything?

That might’ve a connector thing. Orperhaps they so bad the electronics burn themselves out trying to push them to the performance they think they should Get.  It’s not impossible I guess.

[Tragicdice]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

That might’ve a connector thing. Orperhaps they so bad the electronics burn themselves out trying to push them to the performance they think they should Get.  It’s not impossible I guess.

This is the comment I'm referencing from this forum:

 

"It will work, and you'll run into some subtle compatibility problems.  Your Asus antenna is designed for 802.11ax WiFi using the onboard card, which has the antenna geometry burned into its firmware.  The two rubber duck antennas from an 802.11n type card do not have a consistent distance between antennas, which will wreck all sorts of havoc with MIMO functionality.  That being said, you may not notice this.

 

It's also not terribly good for the radios on your WiFi card and will eventually burn them out, but you're not running enough power out of a WiFi card for that to be an issue for another 20+ years at least.  And to be fair, there's no guarantee that the little shark fin is that much better when it comes to RF behavior, these are half watt consumer antennas, not Duga-3." -

 

[Bombastinator]

In my experience plastic “antennas” are just radio transparent covers and protectors for the actual antenna which is inside and may look nothing like the plastic.  I don’t know what is in the shark fin.   If you hate the shark fin plasti you could probably just pull it off and replace it with something else of a different shape. What other shapes might be possible would depend on what is in the thing.  One thing those plastic covers do do though is create a minimum distance. Radio dissipates quickly withdistance.  If you touch the bare metal of an antenna it may well be ionizing at distance zero but not at distance 1/16” so if the plastic is1/16” thick it’s automatically safe. This is thebit that the “cell phones cause cancer!” People get wrong.

[Tragicdice]

4 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

In my experience plastic “antennas” are just radio transparent covers and protectors for the actual antenna which is inside and may look nothing like the plastic.  I don’t know what is in the shark fin.   If you hate the shark fin plasti you could probably just pull it off and replace it with something else of a different shape. What other shapes might be possible would depend on what is in the thing.  One thing those plastic covers do do though is create a minimum distance. Radio dissipates quickly withdistance.  If you touch the bare metal of an antenna it may well be ionizing at distance zero but not at distance 1/16” so if the plastic is1/16” thick it’s automatically safe.

According to a reddit post the shark fin antenna seems to be just a wire inside a plastic case

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, Tragicdice said:

According to a reddit post the shark fin antenna seems to be just a wire inside a plastic case

So you could replace the shark fin with some plastic drinking straws if you wanted to and were careful to keep live things away from it.

[Behemoth66]

Well it's quite simple. I've done the same thing you did and went on Google. Couldn't find results I liked. So as a DIYer I've decided to do the following.

 

1. Remove the antenna from it's base "stand" 

2. Remove the flat piece of plastic underneath the base "stand". Ps the flat plastic piece is plastic welded to the bigger part of the base. But comes(breaks) apart easy without any visible damage.

3. Took an old 2.5" harddrive, stripped it and broke 2 small pieces of the magnets off.

4. Glued the two pieces on the inside of the base on the flat piece.(PS you will have to break off the little "support" pieces inside the base at the tip)

5. Added the little flat piece with the magnets back into the base "stand" with a tiny drop of superglue.

6. Assembled the antenna as normal 

7. Sorted. You can't even see in anyway that the antenna is modded

 

These neodymium magnets aren't too strong(since I broke two small pieces off) so it won't scuff up the case and since it's inside the base above the plastic, but also not too weak where the antenna will fall over or fall off. Also won't affect the wifi/bluetooth signal, tested with my mobile hotspot and the range was exactly the same with no stability issues, dropping signal etc.

 

Obviously I'd say try it on your own risk as you will possibly void the motherboards warranty.

 

I really don't know why Asus couldn't just either add a magnet so that you can mount it anywhere on the case or just add some weights inside the base so that the slightest bump or even the cable can't knock it over. 

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, Behemoth66 said:

Well it's quite simple. I've done the same thing you did and went on Google. Couldn't find results I liked. So as a DIYer I've decided to do the following.

 

1. Remove the antenna from it's base "stand" 

2. Remove the flat piece of plastic underneath the base "stand". Ps the flat plastic piece is plastic welded to the bigger part of the base. But comes(breaks) apart easy without any visible damage.

3. Took an old 2.5" harddrive, stripped it and broke 2 small pieces of the magnets off.

4. Glued the two pieces on the inside of the base on the flat piece.(PS you will have to break off the little "support" pieces inside the base at the tip)

5. Added the little flat piece with the magnets back into the base "stand" with a tiny drop of superglue.

6. Assembled the antenna as normal 

7. Sorted. You can't even see in anyway that the antenna is modded

 

These neodymium magnets aren't too strong(since I broke two small pieces off) so it won't scuff up the case and since it's inside the base above the plastic, but also not too weak where the antenna will fall over or fall off. Also won't affect the wifi/bluetooth signal, tested with my mobile hotspot and the range was exactly the same with no stability issues, dropping signal etc.

 

Obviously I'd say try it on your own risk as you will possibly void the motherboards warranty.

 

I really don't know why Asus couldn't just either add a magnet so that you can mount it anywhere on the case or just add some weights inside the base so that the slightest bump or even the cable can't knock it over. 

The think to watch with DIY antenna stuff is ionizing stuff decrease’s logarithmically, so an antenna with an ionizing power level can be used if living tissue is kept far enough away from it that it drops to a non ionizing level by the time it reaches the tissue.  Often this is as little as a few millimeters.  Those cases aren’t there to be funny they’re there to keep you from touching the actual antenna.  The cases can be made out of anything radio transparent, which is why I mentioned drinking straws. Run a wifi antenna up the center of one of those and it’s basically protected even if you brush your hand against the antenna because your hand can’t get closer than a couple mm.  Get too close though and it can give you cancer.

Edited August 5, 2022 by Bombastinator