Upgrading Laptop Wifi to Dual Band

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A short note for people trying to upgrade  an old laptop Wifi /Bluetooth module and Antenna

Hi... Welcome to another tech byte..

So , you are at the right place to read further , if you looking forward with below reasons..

1. You have an old laptop, which doesn't support new 5Ghz WiFi band , and pretty old Bluetooth version.(v4.0 or below)
2. You have a shitty old Realtek Wifi/BT Hardware , which dosen't have an updated Win 10 driver
3. You are living with a laptop which is shy to walk away from your home WiFi router.You just found out that your laptop only has a single patch antenna and suffers from serious signal strength issues.

Ok then..Now what to look for...? What to understand...? What to understand before shopping new hardware..

1. Digg out the detailed manual of your laptop model . Its is  quite handy for doubts.
2. Understand the connector type of the wifi/bt hardware module to laptop main board(open up  laptop and see)
    It could be NGFF, mini-PCIe ,  depending upon the oldness of the laptop.




3. Read about any hardware module BIOS BLACKLIST for your laptop model. This is a very bad trick that manufactures use to block users from upgrading wifi/BT hardware.

 For example i use a HP laptop 15-AC635TU , which came with Realtek RTL8723BE wifi/bt module (NGFF connector). This Realtek module is a piece of garbage and had serious connectivity issues.  I purchased a Intel AC9260 wifi-bt module, but the laptop  refused to boot and at BIOS screen (i had the latest BIOS version flashed that time), saying the WiFi module is not supported. But again after reading HP forums and numerous hours of surfing on topic, i found out that Intel AC7265 is supported. So i bought one and added to laptop. It works now smoothly.





4. Do understand and read manufacture's website, discussion forums, reddit, youtube etc:-

 5. Understand the antenna wire orientation around the laptop screen frame. Skip this step if you don't need to upgrade or add antenna. But i strongly suggest to upgrade to a dual band antenna.
 Open up and see whether the manufacturer has given you two physical antennas that could be connected to the WiFi module. In my case the HP laptop (15-ac635tu) had only one antenna and thats why i had serious WIFI signal strength issues from the day one of its purchase.

I suggest the brand/Seller  Fenvi in aliexpress.com for buying WiFi/BT modules and also high quality antennas for laptops.




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