Adding a third antenna to Studio 1737

Hi all,

I am wondering if anyone knows whether or not the Studio 17 has a third
antenna wire installed, for upgrading to a (Dell) Intel 5300 Wireless N
card?

If not, does anyone think this would be an extremely hard task?

If I do need to purchase an Antenna Wire, where would I be able to order it?

I am A+ hardware certified, and although Desktops are my forte I'm comfortable inside notebooks. (I have yet to take on the job of disassembling either one of my Studio 17's

One has the ATI 512MB HD 3650 card, [Some Gaming & Multimedia] and one has 4500MHD [Extended battery life when working up to 6 hours with 9 cell]

I would appreciate any knowledge in this area, even if it was from a different 17" Dell.

Kind Regards,

Dejavu2u


PS. Are the Notebook hinges covered under, the hardware warranty?

My one seems wobbly, and my Inspiron 6400 has almost 3 inches of play
from top dead center

 

I wouldn't have thought that you'd need any special sort of wire other than the connector to the card

 

It's not necessary to add 3rd antenna. AFAIK Dell has put the 3rd one inside although the Studio configured with 2 antennas wireless card.

At least mine (1735) has 3 antennas inside although it came configured with Dell Wireless 1510 which only requires 2 antennas. I installed WiFi Link 5300 without any hassle to put extra antenna. Studio 1737 should be the same.

 

My old Studio 1535 and current 1555 had the third antenna already installed, even though they only came with the 2-antenna Intel 5100 wireless card. I replaced each with a 5300 and they worked perfectly. I would be very surprised if yours doesn't have all 3.

Worst case, you can install one yourself, but you will have to remove and disassemble the display unit in order to route the antenna cable.

 

Just in case; I installed a third wire in my Inspiron 1545. It was a lot easier to route the cable through the other side of the display than to have it follow the other two wires.

 

You can add a third cable if you like.
It is an ordinary aluminum based cable, about 1mm in diameter.
You should probably buy one off ebay, so you get the clip which allows you to attach it to the wireless card.
Simply get a wire about 18" long, and snake it through the laptop. Run it up one of the hinges, and tape/ground it to the plastic lid of your screen.

You will have to disassemble the front bezel and remove the LCD to do this.
In most cases you will have to remove the palmrest and keyboard


As per the hinges, you have two options
1) if they are heavy duty hinges, they usually have a bolt running through them, with a hex head on one end, and a bunch of washers and a nut on the other. Simply tighten it up. DONT tighten it too much, or it may cause problems.
2) If there is no bolt, and it is just two pieces of say aluminum sheaved together, you can try clamping one of the rotator cups with a pair of heavy pliers.

Dell covers just about anything under warranty, so just call up

Good luck with your projects

K-TRON

 

K-Tron i'm amazed by the amount of knowledge u have on comps.... for a 19 year old ur too good... someone give him more rep points.....