mini-pci wifi cards - Atheros

We currently have Dell internal 1300 mini-pci (not express) wifi cards in our Dell laptops. They use the Broadcom chipset.

We can see a couple of nearby WAPs. My wife's Fujitsu laptop - with an Atheros internal card - can see about 12 nearby WAPs...

I'm wondering about getting an Atheros card for our laptop to see if the sensitivity is actually better ?

This was one of the few places I could find it -

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Reply to
ps56k
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can she actually connect to any of those others, or is the threshold for low signal/display/non-display just different?... may have nothing to do with sensitivity, but may just mean the software displays more marginal/non connectable signals....

what good is seeing it if you can't use it? other than to let you know what channels not to use.....

Reply to
Peter Pan

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How many do you need to see? If you define "broke" as not being able to get done what you need done... is it broke?

The sensitivity numbers are good. But probably more susceptible to interference. And your results may depend significantly on the antenna configuration.

But...

Is it broke? Or are you just dissatisfied with the numbers on your screen? If you have spare money, you'll feel better if you give it to me ;-)

FWIW, I decomissoned my 108 Mbps wireless router. I found that at the range limit, it was more fragile than "B". And B can easily outrun my DSL connection. If I want to transfer gigabytes, it's much quicker to walk over to the router and plug in a cable. You'll find many web articles saying the same thing about "N".

mike

Reply to
spamme9

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Which Dell laptops? Some of them have the antennas at the sides as part of the speaker assemblies (C600 for example). Other makers seem to place the antennas somewhere in the display, typically at the sides near the top.

Perhaps the Fujitsu has better antennas or better situated antennas.

Jerry

Reply to
Jerry Peters

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Good point on the antenna placement - hmmm - with the Fujitsu being a tablet, I'll have to try with the screen up or down and see if the orientation matters...

We have the Dell C610 - a couple of them in the house - the internal mini-pci wifi board is the Dell branded 1350 (?) with the actual marking -> Broadcom BCM94306MP

Reply to
ps56k

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The placement of the antennae inside a laptop is very important! Older Dell laptops like the black Latitude C-series (and their evil Inspiron twins) and the Latitude 100L (and its twin Inspiron 11xx and sibling Inspiron 51xx models) all have the two antennae going out to the sides of the bottom chassis.

Many newer laptop run the antenna wires up into the two sides of the LCD screen for better reception. This complicates any disassembly and repair a little bit for Dell systems (pretty good design-for-maintenance) and makes the HPaq systems a screaming royal pain-in-the-ass to repair.

It is more likely that the difference in reception has to do with placement of the antennae than the wifi card itself. Still, I have seen a difference in wifi coverage between Intel and Broadcom chips in the same laptop, Intel being better. I have a lot less experience with Atheros cards, which are used more on Toshiba, HPaq, (as you note) Fujitsu and maybe other brands... Ben Myers

Reply to
Ben Myers

Lots of ways to do it wrong. Here's a photo of a Compaq 2120US laptop with the antennas hung on the hinges:

It barely works.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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Yep, antennas at the front of the keyboard unit along the sides near the speakers (actully part of the assembly that holds the speaker in place.

The Atheros in my Aspire 1 sees at least twice as many AP's as the Airlink AWLL3026 USB adapter I'm using on this Latitude C600. An Atheros based Cardbus card also seems to be more sensitive.

Jerry

Reply to
Jerry Peters

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