Will any WLAN card work in a laptop?

[da na]

Will any WLAN card (that fits in the same slot of course) work in any laptop? Family members bought a new router and asked to upgrade an 802.11n Asus laptop to 802.11ac, can it be done? Mini PCIe half size is the slot IIRC. I have some AC cards from Intel and Realtek lying around, the existing card is a Realtek also. Can I just swap it in and be on my way, or are laptops locked to certain WLAN card models? (Sorry for the stupid question, I've never had to upgrade a WLAN card before, just replace with exact replacements.)
Any help would be appreciated!

[Lurick]

Unfortunately it can depend. Some models or brands lock things down and others don't. I would search the exact model + wifi card swap and see if others have done similar and had good/bad results. You could just try to swap in the card and see if it works without issue, worst case you just have to put the old one back in.

[da na]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Unfortunately it can depend. Some models or brands lock things down and others don't. I would search the exact model + wifi card swap and see if others have done similar and had good/bad results. You could just try to swap in the card and see if it works without issue, worst case you just have to put the old one back in.

OK good to know. I assume nothing will catch on fire just by putting the wrong card in?

Edit: Asus has a Realtek, Intel, and Broadcom card listed as options in the service manual so hopefully not locked down...

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, Mel0nMan said:

OK good to know. I assume nothing will catch on fire just by putting the wrong card in?

Nope, worst case the BIOS will just not talk to it or the OS won't see it but you can swap the old one back in and you're good. Just be careful with those damn antennas, they're small as heck and can be a pain to work with sometimes. Also check the color wire matches the key on the card.

[flibberdipper]

2 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Also check the color wire matches the key on the card.

Just offering my two cents on this: it usually doesn't matter too too much. I know laptops can have differently sized antennas (so you might want to give the one with more antenna-ness to WiFi as opposed to Bluetooth), but I have yet to do it in a way that actually hurts performance enough to care.

[Lurick]

Just now, flibberdipper said:

Just offering my two cents on this: it usually doesn't matter too too much. I know laptops can have differently sized antennas (so you might want to give the one with more antenna-ness to WiFi as opposed to Bluetooth), but I have yet to do it in a way that actually hurts performance enough to care.

Yah, the few ones I have worked with were just aux is 1 and main is the other, I doubt it really matters too but just something to keep in mind if it does somehow impact it although there are some out there that only have 1 to begin with so in that case definitely want main on the card instead of aux.

[Sjaakie]

if  you have the cards with the right slot already just try it indeed. Worst case the motherboard wont detect it.

[Alex Atkin UK]

ASUS do not whitelist WiFi cards, so it comes down to if its CNVIo or PCIe.

 

Some laptops with CNVIo cards will work with PCIe ones too, others wont.  Because apparently Intel thought it was just too easy being able to simply swap in any card.

[Falcon1986]

13 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

and asked to upgrade an 802.11n Asus laptop to 802.11ac

An ASUS laptop with that old a wireless card is unlikely to care, as long as the form factor remains the same.

 

Hopefully, the laptop also has built-in 5GHz antenna to take advantage of wireless-AC.