Help on HP 8530w purchase

I am considering purchasing an HP 8530w to replace a Lenovo W500. The Lenovo was sent back to the manufacturer due to many problems, the most serious being the very poor wireless performance. I tried the suggested remedies from this and the Lenovo forum without success. The Intel 5300 in the W500 would not reliably connect with my home or work wireless, let alone hotel or airport systems.

The 8530w uses a similar wifi card, the Intel 5100. I do not want to go through all of the trouble with wireless connections again. Can anyone share their experiences using wifi with the 8530w? Is it possible to install a better wifi card in the 8530w without too much trouble (I am not a computer professional)? Or should I just wait six months or so for Intel to fix the wireless problems?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

My 8530w came with intel 5300 not 5100. AFAIK the 5300 is just an improved version of the 5100 with support for 3 antennae so I don't think it should work any worse.
I don't see any problems installing other wireless cards as all use the same minipci interface. I don't have any wireless problems on asus and d-link wireless G routers. Don't know about other routers or n speed performance.

 

I have a hdx16 with the intel 5100. It connects to wireless G great but not wireless N. It would not hold a stable connection when paired to my Dlink DIR-855. Yes, the 5300 is an upgraded 5100 with 3 antennas instead of 2.

 

My 8530w also came with the 5300, ive had no problems so far. I have actually been surprised with the speed and reliability of the connection, I used to have to reset the router almost everyday, but now I have no problems. At home I connect to a linksys g router and I also connect to the wireless router at school with no problems.

 

Thanks for the responses. It is interesting that the Intel 5300 in the Lenovo W500 did not work, with frequent drop-outs and plenty of trouble making connections. There are hundreds of posts about this problem on the Lenovo forums, so I am not the only one with this experience. There are also a few posts about a similar problem with the 8530w in the HP Help forums. So I am a little concerned about this prior to buying another expensive laptop. Further, my work doesn't give me much time to fix this sort of problem - I need a tool that will work right out of the box.

 

I had been having issues at school with my Intel 5300 card, especially when on battery... and then one day when I tried Windows 7 beta, the "diagnose connection" feature explicitly told me that the access point was "most likely incompatible with the wireless power savings feature". You might consider checking that option, just for the heck of it.