M1330 wireless / antenna question(s)

My m1330 has both the Verizon 5720 card and the Intel 4965 WiFi card in my machine.

When I rec'vd my machine, the VZW card didn't work and I discovered that when the machine was assembled, the antenna wasn't attached to the (cellular data) card.

I called and support told me which wire needed to be hooked up. (Black w/ stripe)

Here is my first question: There are 2 other antenna wires that aren't hooked up to anything. A blue(ish) one and a white with grey stripe. What are these for?

The VZW / Novatel cell data card has a main and an aux antenna port - aux currently not hooked up to anything. The Intel WiFi card is an '802.11n' card, with 3 antenna ports, the middle one also not hooked up to anything.

If a few of you with similar configuration could please pop your cover off and take a look - or a picture, I'd really appreciate it.

Also, thoughts, hints, etc appreciated!!

Thanks!!

 

My guess is the 2 extra wires would be for the GSM cell network options (Cingular/ATT)...

 

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsM1330/en/om/RW4910P.pdf

try that, in the pdf index go to adding/removing parts and go to the wireless mini cards.

(tells you how to connect aux)

 

Thanks

I've called (Dell) twice and didn't get this info.

 

OK...... I still have questions about this.

The WWAN card questions seem to be answered.

But....

There are 3 antenna ports on the Intel 4965 WiFi card (802.11n).

The instructions ( http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...om/RW4910P.pdf)
say to use the white, black and grey wires to their respective ports (marked by same color arrows). But, there is no gray wire, just a blue. And it is too short to reach the card anyway....

This is a bit of a quandry - do "n" cards needthe 3rd antenna?

 

maybe the 3rd wire is for mimo?

 

Yea N cards need 3 antennas for MIMO support. The third antenna is what gives it the increased range and speeds over G which only used 2.

 

So.... being that this card IS an '802.11n' card, that 3rd port SHOULD be hooked up to something. The (missing) grey wire I assume.

The only wire left unhooked is a lighter blue. Is this the grey they are referring to? It's too short to reach the WiFi card anyway.....

Now, the question becomes: did Dell screw up by not including this grey wire,
or if this (blue) wire is the "grey" wire, by making it too short??

My previous calls concerning this to Dell were absolutely pointless. They were (both times!!) telling me to hook the black/stripe wire to the main on the WWAN card and leave the white/stripe wire unhooked - contrary to what is both logical and what the above .pdf says. So, they have inspired ZERO confidence so far.

 

i think others have had this issue about not having the 3rd grey wire to hook up. since i also ordered the wireless n as well, i was kind of hoping that someone would figure this out soon. Did you call their technical support for help about this? Since dell advertised 3 antennas for wireless n but only provide wires for 2 seems really weird to me.

 

I have blown an hour or so on the phone on this... 1st tech support and then CS. Customer service was less than worthless - they just tried to replace the card - then tried to credit me for it, which I passed on - for now)

XPS tech support finally came to the conclusion that this is a for sure Dell F-up. The tech even cracked a pre-production machine he had with him there and it certainly did have the 3rd gray wire. And, also the blue wire, which is for something else.

So, I (and all of you I assume as well) have a machine that bottom line simply won't support the Intel 4965's full potential - without that 3rd antenna.

Now, the question is: are the LCD panels being sourced from multiple vendors and do some of them actually HAVE the gray wire and some do not?

I want this to work dammit!! I paid big $$ for a machine and I want it to work as I intended.

Everyone needs to call Dell XPS tech support and beat on them about this. Maybe they will actually do something about this - like look further into this and then fix it...

 

I saw that Dell will be offering wireless USB with the M1330 later so I wondered if the 'short' lead was actually set aside for that.

 

Damn right - how can they forget an essential antenna for their wireless? Christ, I can't believe the amount of levels Dell has f****d up on; they've pretty much managed to hit rock bottom on everything from customer service to what is fairly crucial in their business: building functional bloody computers.

 

The more of those that know about this and call (and are civil when doing so) -the better the odds are that this will get fixed by Dell.

Just be informative and calm - remember, it isn't that person's fault that you are talking to.

In fact, they appreciate the info - when presented properly.

I have myself now addressed this to multiple Dell folks and (other than the TOTALLY worthless foreign CS rep) they have been extremely receptive and in one case has even committed to getting it fixed for me.

 

Quite right, calmness is important when dealing with them. However, while it is not their fault directly they are the front men representing their company - ergo they represent their company's faults.

 

Just bumping this

Coz I just recived my 1330 M and the thing is perfect except it only has two antenas for the wireless . Which is quite annoying.

Also dell are sourcing their LEC pannels from two sources being Toshiba & chi-mei opteoelectronics. My screen is a toshiba. To find out what yours is go into device managed then monitors select the monitor and get the device ID for the monitor if it says LCD then it is toshiba if it says OCM I think it is then its a Chi-mei

 

i received mine over a month ago and posted about this then but it has been so long and I have been fighting dell for so long about my build quality, cusomer service, my replacement, etc, i had forgotten all about it...
i too only have 2 wires on my N

 

The question is - has anyone received one with all three wires connected?

If not then it seems that there is probably a very good reason that there isn't a third wire. Other manufacturing defects seem to have been addressed by now so why wouldn't they have started connecting the third wire if it was beneficial?

e.g. it may be that there is no performance benefit from the third wire - perhaps there is nowhere else in the laptop to run it to get a better signal (e.g. maybe one is up left hand of screen and the other the right hand already).

(Sometimes I wish Dell would defend themselves a bit better)

 

How did you stumble upon this problem, did you see something in device manager that flagged it for you or was it just when you had issues with your mobile broadband card that you discovered the problem with the wireless N card as well?
I mean seriously, do we all need to deconstruct these laptops just to make sure Dell did their job properly?

In regards to someone mentioning how many f*#kups they've done lately and how they hit rock bottom....well its not completely unprecedented. There are alot of meth addicts who have gone from respectable members of society to crack heads.
Is Dell on crack? hmmmmm

 

I posted info on this in the m1330 'lounge'

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2423815&postcount=1907

There isn't a 3rd gray antenna cable on the LED displays.
Just the CCFL displays.

This, according to a very helpful person at Dell.

I quote:

1. The XPS M1330 with the WLED display has TWO antennas. This is the system you have. THE traditional CFFL display does have three antennas.

2. Systems do not need three antennas to support .11n. You should not see lower peak data rates (300 Mbps) with the Intel 4965 card on the WLED M1330 vs the CFFL M1330. Below are some additional details from .

• The number of antennas is related to the number of 11n streams that can be supported.

• There are no three-stream 11n radios currently in the market. Next year, we will see 3 stream radios. Dell is actually unique in incorporating three antennas into several our notebooks today.

• The Intel 4965 mini-Card is a two stream radio that uses one extra antenna for diversity receive. This does not increase the peak data rate (it is still just 300Mbps), but may provide some added signal robustness.

 

I have a WLED screen, and it also have 3 wires.
I have the wireless N card too. and the 3rd wire is not connected to anything.

 

Hello. I too noticed the Antenna problem. The cable for me, is there, but way too short to reach its destination. I removed the keyboard and LCD and followed the cable. It is in properly, the cable is simply too short. Here's a picture.