dual band N in a wireless G laptop

[sdeleeuw]

I have a Dell Latitude D630 laptop. Presently it has dual band (but dual a & g, not n) Dell 1490 wireless card in it. Looking at the laptop specs, it had several draft N cards for options. I opened it up and found only 2 antennas.

My question:
To take advantage of my 5ghz band on the router, could I get one of the 2.4ghz/5ghz mini-pcie wireless N cards and replace my 1490 or would more messing be needed to use 5ghz? Some cards are 3 antenna cards, others say they will work with 2. Will any of the 3 antenna N cards work with just 2?

Here are the options that laptop could of had:

WLAN
Dell Wireless 1390 (802.11g); Dell Wireless 1490 (802.11a/g); Dell Wireless 1505 (802.11a/g/Draft n); Intel PRO/Wireless 3945AG (802.11a/g); Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN (802.11a/g/ Draft n) Mini-Cards, Dell Wireless 360 Bluetooth 2.0 internal wireless card (upgradable to Bluetooth 2.1 EDR) (optional).

 

[sdeleeuw]

From the lack of responses, is this a dumb question? I figured thiggins or stevech would answer at least...

 

[jdabbs]

I upgraded my D620 with an Intel 5300. If your existing card supports both a (5 GHz) and g (2.4 GHz), then frequency bands are not a concern. My card works with only two antennas attached.

When upgrading a laptop, your primary concern should be determining if your OEM locked down the BIOS to whitelist certain cards. I would be reasonably confident a card is compatible if a search turned up a user with that card+laptop combination. If I couldn't find a result for either a yea or nay, I'd research the OEM to determine if they do engage in BIOS locking.

 

[StratmanX]

I upgraded a Dell Vostro 1400 with an Intel 5300 purchased off eBay. The Vostro has 3 antenna but was only using 2 for the adapter card that came with the notebook. The Intel 5300 can utilize three antenna and has a maximum throughput of 450 Mbps versus 300 Mbps maximum when using only two antenna.

Two things:

1) Make sure you are purchasing an adapter card that works with your Dell. I needed a mini card, not a half mini card. I also needed an Intel 5300 that was on the "whitelist" of the Dell BIOS. There are two types of Intel 5300, and maybe other cards as well - those that work with Dell and those that won't. The eBay auctions usually state which machines the card will work on. If the auction does not state it works with Dell, then look at a different auction.

2) If you want to utilize the full capacity of the Intel 5300 then you will need a wireless router that is dual band, has three antenna and three radios for each band, and connect all three antenna to the adapter card. If your Dell does not have three antenna already inside the notebook then you can buy another antenna and fit it into the case. Search on Dell's forum or use Google to find what others have done. A quick look on Google shows a poster who says your D630 has three antenna and will work with a full height mini card PCI-E Intel 5300. Do your research, including which antenna connects to which terminal on the adapter card.

The Intel 5300 should work with just two antenna connected but you will not be able to obtain more than 300 Mbps throughput regardless of the wireless router you have. Three antenna connected even with a maximum of 300 Mbps from the router may still improve overall performance of the notebook adapter card because the third antenna may be used to improve signal reception, at least that's what I've read.

To be clear, the maximum 300/450 Mbps are theoretical and only possible with file sharing over your local network, unless your ISP provides download speeds of 300/450 Mbps! Most people in the US have internet connection download speeds less than 10 Mbps and very few have 50 Mbps or higher.

Concerning eBay purchases, mine was from China and took 10 days and arrived in a padded envelope - not the best protection but enough.

 

[sdeleeuw]

Wow! Thank you very much! I had just ordered a 5300 from ebay, went and took a look again and it does say the D630, guess I got lucky on that one...

I looked at the wireless card I have in there and only saw two antennas... I think I'm ok with that though... my internet download speed is 22mbps, so even 300 will be big overkill... I basically need it for my laptop when doing VPN stuff for work at home... Wireless saturation in the neighborhood is so bad that I only see about 4mbps at the moment with wireless g.

For router, I just picked up the Edimax dual band, but it hasn't arrived yet...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833315100

I guess looking at it, it's wireles a as well... I don't care about max speed so much as just being in uncongested airspace...

 

[StratmanX]

Your welcome. I know what you're going through.

Your current wireless adapter card may not use 3 antenna but according to posts on the internet there appears to be three antenna in the D630. Dell installed three intenna in many models even though the user paid for an adapter card that used only two antenna.

I found the third wire bundled with the other two but curled away from the direction of the other two as they traversed a couple more inches to the adapter card. See here for more, especially about the correct order to connect the antenna.

Looking over the notes I made before installation, I see that I connected the antenna in a different configuration in my Vostro 1400 than the one mentioned in the link above for your notebook.

Notes On Installation On Vostro 1400:
Dell uses color coding - white/black/grey - while the Intel connectors are not color-coded but labeled T1/T2/T3. According to information from Dell tech support and Intel community forum, white antenna wire goes to T1, black to T2 and grey to T3. Note that the terminals are not marked sequentially - T3 is in the middle.

I don't know which is correct for either of us. I followed the tips that I found for my Vostro and things seem to work OK so far.

Look at the color of the wires currently connected to your wireless adapter card. I found that the two wires used to connect my old card were used for T1 and T2 in the same orientation on the new Intel 5300 card, while the third antenna - the grey one - attached to the middle T3 terminal on the Intel 5300. This symmetry made sense but it doesn't mean it's correct. Just food for thought for you.

Another important point, to make things easier, is to download the most recent Intel 5300 drivers from Intel before installing the card so you will have them ready to install on first boot. I installed just the drivers, not the PROSet/Wireless Software, to keep it simple and avoid potential software conflicts.