Upgrading laptop WiFi card

[Rokunas]

Hello everybody, yesterday my ISP sent me a new modem and it's a brand new VirginMedia 'Super Hub 2' (in UK only ) and it had dual band antennas, and i wanted to ask is it possible to upgrade my laptop's wifi card because its only 2.4Ghz and i want to use full potential of my internet

I have HP Pavilion n083sa and im thinking about upgrading my Atheros 'AR5B125' to Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260.
Will it work?  Any help will be appreciated

[givingtnt]

nope

[Rokunas]

why?

[Scratchy1215]

from my most recent experience with laptops its best to just not fuck with the insides... support from the company will not help u, they will reinstall ur old one if anything goes wrong and wont pay u the reimbursement... best plan would be buy a usb network card and pray its not crappy like the one my brother bought and cuts out in the middle of a league ranked match due to heat.... 

[Rokunas]

its only a wifi card, not some rocket science... i swapped my wifi card with my other laptop card and it worked just fine, im just asking because i read somewhere that there may be whitelists on BIOS that wont accept some cards.

[iHammmy]

Yes! My dad did it and he knows nothing about computers... as long as you know how to undo a few screws then you're sorted.

[Guest]

That specific model number doesn't turn anything up weirdly.

n084ca seems to be the closest and corresponds to this manual

The manual describes the replacement procedure, but doesn't seem to provide the whitelist, only saying

To prevent an unresponsive system, replace the wireless module only with a wireless

module authorized for use in the computer by the governmental agency that regulates wireless devices in

your country or region. If you replace the module and then receive a warning message, remove the module to

restore computer functionality, and then contact support through Help and Support.

So the compatibility thing seems to be a crapshoot.

It does go on saying that there should be a label

Wireless certification label(s)—Provide(s) information about optional wireless devices and the

approval markings for the countries or regions in which the devices have been approved for use.

But I can't imagine a label giving a list of third party modules. You should probably check what model the module installed in your system is and search for ones from the same product line.

[DerBernd]

I upgraded my crappy old Asus Laptop with a new wifi card (for bluetooth reasons). I used the same intel 7260 card you mentioned. Since the module is around 25€ there is no real danger here. It plugs into PCI so hardwarewise there should be no problems. And there are windows drivers as far as I know.

 

I installed it on a Ubuntu Laptop (Lubuntu but nevermind) and did not have driver issues. Although I had to get a half hight to full hight adapter for my mini PCI wireless card, that was another 5€ on Ebay. Looking at the google images results for your current wifi card you should be okay.

 

If you want I can give you a few pointers with the pictures I made installing it.

 

Did I get any speed increases with the new wifi card? I do not know. So I did overspend by around 25€ for bluetooth capability on my laptop (comparing to a 10€ bluetooth adapter). But the 25€ were money well spent on the fact that I do not have an USB slot busy all the time and the modding was quite fun. So please do not expect to much except for a bit of fun modding it.

[Rokunas]

I think i will go YOLO with that Intel 7260 card and see if it will work. I will update this after i get the card upgrade .

Thanks for the support