Insprion 1420 Upgrade Wireless

So after a bit of a ... problem ... with my 1330 outlet order, I settled for an Inspiron 1420.

It has the Intel 3945 card, wireless G, I would like to get the 4965 card.

When I went from the 3945 to the Dell 1505Wlan card in my 1520, it was plug and play.

I see the 3945 has a 3rd antenna ... if I don't hook up the 3rd antenna,what will happen? I am assuming my laptop doesn't have the 3rd antenna?

 

I'd like to ask the same question.

 

Way to revive a thread from nearly a year ago.

I'm not sure if you can use a 3-antenna card with only 2 antennae, but I know you can buy antenna cables and route them yourself.

 

You can use a three-antenna card with two antennas. It just won't work as well as it would with three antennas. Quite frankly, I doubt you'd be able to tell the difference in day-to-day use; the difference in performance should be minimal.

 

Don't some computers have the three antennas even with a two antenna card?

 

Yes. It's because higher-spec versions of the model may ship with three-antenna cards and the manufacturer doesn't want to make two different chassis revisions (one with two and one with three antenna). This is actually really common for Dell; I've got three antennas in my E6400, which only has a two-antenna card.

 

The 1420 comes with three antennas.

 

Exactly. My Studio 1535 has three antennae (black, white, grey), but the wireless card I got (Dell 1397 B/G) only has plugs for the black and white ones, so the grey one just kind of hangs there.

On that note, my Intel WiFi Link 5300 wireless-N card just arrived in the mail today, which uses all 3 antennae. I'm going to install it later tonight and see how it goes.

 

How did it go?

 

Can I install an Intel 4965AGN from a T61?

 

So far so good. I ended up having to go to the Studio 1537's download page to borrow its driver for the Intel WiFi Link 5300, because the 1535 doesn't have it on its own page (older Santa Rosa platform, so they think nobody will use an Intel 5-series card). But the driver and card seem to be working perfectly so far. I've got all 3 antennae hooked up, and even though my current router is only wireless-G, it seems a bit more responsive. Like, hitting "submit" when making a post here displays the post in a fraction of a second, when before it used to usually take a few seconds.

That depends. I know the Studio laptops can only use half-height mini PCI-e cards, and I don't know about the Lenovo T61 or the Inspiron. If the T61 has a half-height card and the Inspiron uses a half-height card, sure. But if the T61 has a full-height card and the Inspiron needs half-height, then it won't work.

 

It won't work. I got a "hardware cannot start" "Code 10" error. I think Lenovo does something to the chip. I have to get either another 4965AGN or 5300.

 

The error was because I used a card from a Lenovo. It worked with a generic 5300. It had the three wires too.

 

i upgraded to 4965AGN.

The 1420 has 3 antennas. the third cable was un-connected.

I purchased a generic 4965AGN card from buy dot com for cheeeeaaaaaap. works great.

 

Hi everyone. I'm going to try to revive this...

In a more recent thread
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=452137
both truckless and I have the same issue:

want to upgrade a dell inspiron 1420 to wireless-N.
1. Intel 4965 which Dell sells, so likely to work.
--Operates in both the 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz spectrum
--Offers peak data rates up to 300 Mbps, enabled by 2x3 Draft N1 implementations with 2 spatial streams

Truckless read somewhere that "they" (Dell?) disabled support for 40 MHz in the 2.4 GHz channel, so only 130 MBps with a 2.4 GHz only router

2. Intel 5300
--operate in both the 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz spectra
--3x3 802.11n implementations with 3 spatial streams. Up to 450 Mbps

We'd prefer the 5300 for the faster transfer (provided we have better sources in the future), but we have not been able to find a "dell branded" 5300, only HP type which gives the code 10 error. Mastershroom, you found a 5300 card that worked in your dell studio 1535? Would it work in a dell inspiron 1420, or no because the BIOS are different?

arjunprabhu, you installed the 4965 in the 1420, how fast does it transfer?

in general, how does one test how fast the transfer is?

Thanks everyone in advance.

 

The Intel 5300 card I got was a half-height model from eBay, I don't think it had any specific branding.

This one should perfectly, for instance:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Intel-Wifi...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3ca7b98dc8

 

Well, i could get connects at 300 Mbps, but they were to be frank not very stable, it would switch back to lower speeds. .. but i could get very stable connects at 135Mbps. ... my router also may be to blame - wrt 600n running dd-wrt.

 

My TP-LInk TL-WR941ND + ebay full height Intel 5300 (ES) combo gives me a stable 300Mbps connection.

But after I searched on ebay again, the ES cards were not listed anymore,
I guess ebay has restrict the selling of ES cards now?

I'm on Vostro 1400 which is identical with Inspiron 1420
and my friend's 1420 also using 5300 from ebay