On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 17:19:16 GMT, John Navas wrote: : On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 07:27:27 GMT, mike wrote in : : : : >My spare Westell 327w wireless router has a mini-pci : >wireless-G card with the TI chipset TNETW1130GVF. : >
: >My Dell Latitude 600 has a mini-pci slot that's just : >begging to have the wireless card installed. Sure would : >be nice to be able to pack up the laptop without removing : >the protruding cardbus card. : >
: >Anybody done this can advise?? : : To Bill's advice I add this comment by Jeff Liebermann: : : Be advised that current IBM, HP, and possibly Compaq laptops all have : a "feature" which prevents MiniPCI cards that have not been type : certified with the specific laptop from working. The BIOS detects the : card and won't let the machine boot. There are workarounds but most : are no fun. : : I can't say if this also applies to Dell or not. The best way to know : for sure is to try it. : : Another option is to pick up a Dell mini PCI Wi-Fi card on eBay, where : they often go for under $20.
Even at retail from Dell, they're only about twice that.
I assume it's a C600, not a D600, that's under discussion. The description of the slot earlier in the thread seems to suggest that.
On a C600, I can think of two potential problems:
- If the computer has a modem/ethernet mini-PCI card, you'll have to remove it. So if you need those capabilities, you'll have to get them with a PCMCIA card (which, OTOH, won't stick out like your wireless card does).
- There's a mismatch in the connectors. If you install a Dell wireless card in, say, a C610, there are two antenna wires waiting to be connected to the card. A C600 doesn't have those. I don't have a C600 in front of me, but I believe it has a single connector like the connectors on the card. So you'll need to supply your own wire with appropriate connectors of the opposite gender. (YMMV with a 3rd-party card, of course.)
All this has been enough to keep me from upgrading a C600 to built-in wireless, although I've done it on a fair number of C610s and C640s. I consider the C600s to be near the end of their useful life anyway (they're awfully slow running Windows XP), and we don't have very many of them. So coming up with a satisfactory hack hasn't been worth the trouble.