Integrated 802.11N

I am wanting to buy a 9000t laptop, but I am hesitant because of the integrated 802.11N cards coming out "sometime". Dell has been offering this for sometime on their laptops and I noticed HP offers it when you build a laptop up with the AMD chip instead of the Intel. I contacted HP about this and they confirmed that you can only get the integrated “N” card with their AMD chip. Does anyone know when HP will offer the integrated N card with the Intel chips? If I get a laptop now, would I be able to upgrade the internal card to the "N" card in the future?

 

Depends. Some have been saying Intel's Draft N 4965 WiFi card will be out before Santa Rosa, others say it'll be out along with Santa Rosa.

And yes, you can upgrade the WiFi card in a current laptop to an N-based card in the future, as long as it's Mini-PCIe, which most all are.

 

Does anyone know if the 9000T has 3 antennas? From reading this thread, you will need 3 antennas to get the full benefits of the 802.11 N card.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1763683

 

Isnt there a concern about the bios locking out certain brands of wireless cards though?

 

Indeed. And HP is one of those brands.

 

OK, I am a little confused here. I am one of those fools who chose to get the AMD dv9000z because of its Pre-N option. Are you guys saying that its not going to work? or if the BIOS of my notebook going to lock out some Pre-N routers? If so, which ones?

 

Can someone explain why it would need three antenna? You only need 2 to transmit and recieve at the same time. What would the third one be for.

 

Good question. Probably has something to do with MIMO, which is multiple input multiple output. That would obviously be more efficient with more antennas, you would think.

 

only if there is multiple recievers/transmiters to go along with it otherwise its only going to use 1 at a time.

 

Not sure myself, but all I know is that reports and technical details point to the Intel's N card having three antennas.

 

Dude... don't wait for it. It's not going to come out in a while. The current wireless is fine for normal users. Unless you really need that extra coverage, I guess you can wait. But by then, another new 802.11X is gonna come out and you gonna have regrets. Besides, it's new like Vista. And Vista ain't that great.

 

Personally I like Vista. Its really not that bad. As for the antenna on the wireless N, you will not have to have 3 atenna. You just have to have more than one for the MIMO. Both the routher and the wireless nic card have to have at least two antenna for it to function.

 

With that in mind, would we have any HOPE at all for a future upgrade with a 802.11N support?
Like would we just have to wait for Intel or something to release a normal wifi card for us to use with N support?

Googling says the dv2000t I ordered won't work with the Atheros card that everyone raves about without a bios hack. I like to avoid bios hacks when possible. I am not a big fan of bricks.

 

Also, don't most of the N routers have three antennas? Anyone roughly know when we should be able to buy a quad core Santa Rosa notebook?

 

quadcore probably wont be out for a while til they are in a lot more desktops as options. Im pretty sure that it does have 3 antenna. Althoguh from what ive read all you need is 2 antenna, most use 3. One for transmit and two for recieve.

 

I don't normally bring up "dead threads", but this seemed to have the most relevant discussion compared to my issue.

We have an HP dv9500 laptop that came with an integrated Broadcom 802.11g card. The laptop has an AMD Turion CPU, but not the 802.11n wifi.

The broadcom card is by the the crappiest mini pci-e card I've ever had the displeasure to work with. Unless you're sitting right in front of the router, disconnects are rampant. I've tried every available driver and configuration in the card's advanced settings in devmgr. Nothing seems to make it better.

That being said, I want to upgrade the mini pci-e NIC itself.

I've found both an intel and atheros card on ebay that would physically fit. The problem is most of these Ebay vendors list HP notebooks as NOT compatible. Upon asking, they relay that HP "whitelists" cards to work on their notebooks. Which then, is the right 802.11n mini pci-e card to get for this laptop?

I find this frustrating, as the last notebook (my current one) that I upgraded had no retail cards available. It was a Dell M170 with a regular mini pci slot. I ended up figuring out the Dlink DIR-655 N router had a mini pci radio in it. It took me forever to find compatible drivers, and the Dell only had two antennas, but I get a solid, fast 300 mb/s connection every time.

I'm hoping for similar success with the dv9000. Any advice??