any htpc internal wifi mod

[tailslol]

hello here a small mod i made.

i made a very beefy htpc/lan mini itx rig

using a elite 130 case

a z87e itx motherboard from azrock

a watercooled 4770K in push pull

with 2 3.5"sshdd and a gtx 970 strix.

as you expect it was a very tight fit and i had to use the disk drive bay to put the 2nd sshdd.

 

 

last year i broke the very flimsy shrink wrap of the wifi antenna connector during a lan party

since then,i was living a real nightmare to make the wifi bluetooth work.

it had only 1 or 2 bar in the wifi detection ,most usb wifi dongle i was throwing at it was not compatible or had weird bugs with my motherboard.

and in france replacement antennas are still hard to find.

so to avoid any more problems i chose to go with a internal wifi mod for my elite 130 .

i read tons of forum subjects about laptop antennas and how some pc maker like hp,alienware or apple put antennas inside their case.

i read too about the faraday cage problem.

 

and founded some basic rules about using a internal antenna inside a desktop.

i am not sure if they are true but here my bet:

1 you need to put the antenna on a thin plastic part of the cage to avoid problems.

2 you need to put the antennas on the upper part of the case.

and 3 : you need place the antennas on the most external and the upper part of the case for best result.

if you use more than 1 antenna the spacing between each antenna should be around 1 hand .

 

so i purchased this style of antennas to replace mine. http://www.ebay.fr/itm/251597877097?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

 

and i glued them to my cd cover of my case .

i was kinda scared because the front of the computer was plastic honeycomb with metal mesh.

 

but after hooking the antennas to my motherboard i had really good result .

 

with all wifi bars full most of the time and bt working again with a good range of 30m

so i am happy with this mod and i recommend it for most new itx builds.

 

 

hope you enjoyed my mod,sorry for my bad english im french.

[tailslol]

I forgot to tell some stuff:

The antenna use utl plugs so yes you need to have a mini pcie module or pcie one.

I had to unplug the 2 old antenna wires and tape them somewhere safe.

Most usb wifi keys will have problems inside the pc case so I do not recommend to use some.

The antennas I linked actually come with 3m adhesive .it is how I glued mines.