Hi there. My wife has a Toshiba Portege z835-p330 and for the most part it's worked well for her with the exception that the wireless connection will drop out fairly regularly while she's working (at least a few times a week, sometimes 2-3 times a day). It's definitely the laptop too since it will happen while my laptop is on at the same time and my connection remains rock solid. (My laptop is a different model but both have the same stock wireless card, the Intel WiFi Link 1000 BGN aka Centrino Wireless-N 1000). I've uninstalled and downloaded the latest drivers for her which didn't help and I can't get any answer on the Toshiba forums as to their whitelist so I can even know what PCIe card I could swap it out with if I decide to go that route. Although not sure I'd want to anyway since I suspect the issue is just as likely to be with the antenna or heat related due to ultrathin FF of this particular model than it is with the card itself. Anyway, 2 things I'm looking for:
1) Recommendations on a good USB N adapter, especially if there is a nano model that she can keep plugged in all the time and not have to worry about it overheating. I was looking at the Asus USB-N10 but a couple of the reviews on Newegg make me worry about that (especially plugged into this laptop). She's on this laptop 8 hrs a day for work, just web and email so she doesn't need anything super-fast or for downloading/transferring files all day, doesn't need dual band (although we have a dual band router). She just needs to be able to maintain a reliable connection all day long. Is that even possible w/the nano models or should I be looking at something else?
2) If I do decide to try to swap out the wireless card, anyone know how Toshiba is w/their whitelist restrictions? I've heard HP and Lenovo are strict about requiring you to buy the hardware from them (w/limited choices and jacked up prices) but I'm not familiar with Toshiba's rules on this.
Thanks.
1) Recommendations on a good USB N adapter, especially if there is a nano model that she can keep plugged in all the time and not have to worry about it overheating. I was looking at the Asus USB-N10 but a couple of the reviews on Newegg make me worry about that (especially plugged into this laptop). She's on this laptop 8 hrs a day for work, just web and email so she doesn't need anything super-fast or for downloading/transferring files all day, doesn't need dual band (although we have a dual band router). She just needs to be able to maintain a reliable connection all day long. Is that even possible w/the nano models or should I be looking at something else?
2) If I do decide to try to swap out the wireless card, anyone know how Toshiba is w/their whitelist restrictions? I've heard HP and Lenovo are strict about requiring you to buy the hardware from them (w/limited choices and jacked up prices) but I'm not familiar with Toshiba's rules on this.
Thanks.