Misconnected Intel NextGen 802.11n WLAN MiniCard in XPS M1330

Hello to all from a new M1330 owner!

After reading through the manual and seeing that it describes the process of removing/adding the wireless card (among other pieces of hardware), I opened the respective cover to see what lies beneath.

What I saw, was two mini-card slots: one for WLAN, one for WWAN (cellular internet). The WLAN slot was, as expected, occupied by the Intel NextGen 802.11n card. There also were five cables coming from the two integrated antennae. Logically, two of the cables are destined for the WWAN card and the other three for the WLAN card (if it is 802.11n, otherwise only the two get connected and one is left unconnected).

The Intel card has indeed three connectors: White, gray, black. Problem is, cables are connected to only two of them (white and black). Furthermore, from the remaining cables, no one is long enough to reach to the card.

The remaining cables are gray-white, gray-black, blue.

In such a configuration, the draft-n capabilities of the card are not utilised, since 802.11n needs three antennae.

The manuals (user and service) say nothing about the draft-n card installation.

Any suggestions? Should I call Dell and tell them about my findings or I would put my warranty at risk?

Thanks

 

Can you post a pic of your wirelesscard so that we can understand it better...mine inspiron has 802.11/b/g wireless card so the third wire you are talking about is not there.... but I install draft N pcl card in my desktop so I can try to understand/match connector conbination with it if I can see what you are talking about..

 

Yup - it has been posted here before concerning the M1330.

Most recent one here

 

I was concerned about this very thing when I got my 1330. And, I pushed the point with Dell until I got an answer - not the one I wanted...

Bottom line - on the 1330s with the LCD display, there is NO 3rd wire for the 'n' card - it was an engineering pooch boink.

 

Well there is a third wire..... The missing grey one is attached to the m1330's but is not connected to the wireless card- it's too short to reach.

 

I'm in the same boat. M1330 with LED screen and N card... only 2 wires connected.

 

As the other thread said, you don't need the third wire, n wireless will work without it. Having said that, I will say that the whole design thing was a big snafuu in terms of the wires; seems like it would have been easy to extend the third wire. Anyway, I am not sure what, if any, impact it has on performance but n wireless is two wires.

 

why can you not use any combination of wires to get three antennas

 

I am guessing - but the length of the wires may have a tuning effect... so using another wire for the third antenna may not help at all if the length is wrong for the frequencies that the WLAN card works at... as the Intel card is only using two wires (whichever are the best of the connected ones) connecting an additional wire probably brings no benefit.

 

i use ne three on wireless g and get FULL reception(using the wifi cathcer on the m1330) not even my desktop pci could do that,