Recommend me a good wifi card upgrade?

Hey all,

I'm looking for a worthy wifi card upgrade for my G50VT which runs on the ancient Intel 5100 card. I believe my Envy comes with the Intel 6300 and it has a MUCH better range in my apartment with its super thick sound-insulation. My G50VT's card by contrast sputters intermittently between webpage loads and is too spotty.


Could anyone recommend me a wifi card that will fit inside my G50VT?

Thanks!

 

The Intel 5100 is not ancient by any means, but it sounds like you recommended yourself a good card already.

 

Will it fit in the G50VT? Main reason I'm asking is I'm not sure whether a particular card might fit inside. I plan to keep the G50VT around for as long as possible. I'm willing to pay up to $100 for a card if I can get a good returns for it.

Are there any cards out there that beat the 6300?

 

All wireless cards are interchangeable in the mini-pcie interface. The only difference is that some are full height and some are half height. Look it up to see which your laptop carries. You can shoehorn a half into a full, but usually not a full into a half. The Intel 6300 is only available as a half-mini pcie. If the intel 6300 isn't at the top, it is close, and it is far less than $100. You can buy it on this forum for less than $40 shipped.

 

Found one on fleabay new for $40 being sold by a seller with 99.9% feedback out of a total of 10k.

It's probably been a while since I've bought from someone who has such high feedback. Thanks!

 

Question to anyone. I'm aware the Intel 6300 can link up to 3 antennas.

Could someone tell me how many antennas the G50VT comes with? The basic user guide wasn't too informative in this area.

 

I'm thinking the G50 comes with 2 antennas, and I'd recommend an Atheros adapter. They perform extremely good for a 2 antenna design, usually.

 

It doesn't really matter. I can't tell the difference between 2 and 3, and you really shouldn't unless you have a 450mbps router.

 

Which one? How's the range?

Don't have a 450mbps router, but I really want the card with the best range. What's important is not so much how fast I can download as nice as super fast download speeds might be, but the range.

I've found a few antenna I can salvage off of eBay for as cheap as $2-3. When I get around to it later today after studying, I'm going to do some more research and order the card.




One last question: If the 5100 only comes with 1 antenna and I decide to order 2 more antenna to go with the 6300, will it be difficult to find other ideal places to put the antenna?

 

your G50vt will have 2 antennas for sure.. only netbooks have one.. also if u get a 6300, 2 antennas is enough.. not worth the hassle to install 3..

 

Hmmm. Is there anything I'm losing by not installing the 3rd antenna? I'd have no problem with ordering an extra on on eBay and installing/lining it somewhere else. I assume that the Intel 6300 with 2 antennas better than the Intel 5100? Also, Artheros or Intel?

 

I have an Intel 5300 and 6300. Both are great whether used with 2 or 3 antennas. I used to think that it could possibly have slightly better range by having the third antenna to use, but I don't buy that anymore. You can get the third antenna for piece of mind, but in real-world use, you'd be hard pressed to come up with any difference.

 

Okey dokes. Looks like I'll be placing an order sometime later on. Just realized now that I may be best off holding off on upgrading the card until I have a tech service guy nearby look my laptop over. Screen's been having issues. It sometimes boots up with the whole screen being filled up by homogeneous color that changes every couple of seconds, and if it doesn't do that, it boots up with a dark screen. Hoping someone can fix it as this laptop was bought as a refurb less than a year ago.