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    Wireless card for XPS M1330?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by huai, Dec 16, 2009.

  1. huai

    huai Notebook Consultant

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    I have an older XPS M1330 that came with a Dell 1395 802.11 b/g card. I recently got an N router and wish to upgrade to an N card. Looking at the dell parts site, I see that the only N cards that Dell shipped with this system are Intel 4965 AGN and Dell 1505. I initially planned to go for the 4965 card, however after reading many positive reviews about the 5300 AGN I'm considering that one if it will work.

    Does anyone have first hand experience of the 5300 AGN working with a M1330?

    I took off the cover plate for the wireless card and I see that I have 5 antennae wires. Two (Black and White striped) are for my WWAN card, if I had one. Two (Black and White solid) are currently connected to the two antennae on the 1395, and I'm not sure what the 5th blue wire is for.

    Intel cards have 3 antennae connections, while the dells ones have 2. I was under the impression you need to have the third antennae to take advantage of 802.11 N MIMO capabilities. Does anyone know if the blue wire goes on the middle connections? The service manual illustration only shows 2 antennate.

    Dell 1395 (2 antennae connections):
    [​IMG]

    Dell 1505 (2 anetennae connections)
    [​IMG]

    Intel 4965 (3 antennae connections)
    [​IMG]

    Intel 5300 (3 antennae connections)
    [​IMG]

    Edit:

    According to this post I can just hook up one of the WVAN antennae - any truth to that?
     
    huai, Dec 16, 2009
    #1
  2. ahl395

    ahl395 Ahlball

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    Seeing as Dell does not use BIOS Whitelisting, you can use any WiFi Card you want. ;)

    AFAIK, you dont need to connect every antenna. :rolleyes:
     
    ahl395, Dec 16, 2009
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  3. huai

    huai Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks for the quick response - I read around online and apparently some M1330s have a 6th grey wire that mine did not have =/
     
    huai, Dec 16, 2009
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  4. ahl395

    ahl395 Ahlball

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    It could be because of a refresh of the laptop... Or maybe if the laptop was ordered with a WWAN card or not. I'm not sure
     
    ahl395, Dec 16, 2009
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  5. Alemaker

    Alemaker Notebook Consultant

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    I installed an Intel 5300 in my M1330 and just bought another antenna. Got the antenna on eBay for like $10 and connected it and ran it along the existing antenna wire channel. Worked great :)
     
    Alemaker, Dec 16, 2009
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  6. KingRaptor

    KingRaptor Notebook Evangelist

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    The blue wire is for the optional bluetooth card.
     
    KingRaptor, Dec 16, 2009
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  7. huai

    huai Notebook Consultant

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    Bluetooth card is located elsewhere so I dont think its for that. Can anyone recomment a reliable source to buy 5300 card that will work for M1330? I see a lot of them for sale with warnin gonly works for IBM/HP.
     
    huai, Jan 10, 2010
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  8. sean473

    sean473 Notebook Prophet

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    well look on ebay... i'm quite sure u'll find some which are non hp and lenovo...
     
    sean473, Jan 10, 2010
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  9. jeremysdad

    jeremysdad Notebook Evangelist

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    Amazon, Newegg, TigerDirect? Any other number of online retailers?

    Amazon, for example...
     
    jeremysdad, Jan 10, 2010
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