Intel 6230 wireless card vs. stock in np8170/p170hm

I'm thinking of buying a I've been trying to figure out if there are any noticeable differences in these cards' performance worth teh 25$ upgrade. I've crawled the web, but there doesn't seem to be any decent sources of information.

I'll mainly be using my laptop with my college wireless which can be pretty sketchy. Will the intel card improve my speeds? I know that question is pretty subjective. I just want to have a general idea of any advantages.

 

since your gonna be mainly using your college's wifi, I highly recommend you upgrade to the Intel 6300.

 

oh? a bit surprising. well thank you. Just out of curiosity, what makes it better, exactly? The reach, speeds, etc.?

 

The 6300 can go faster and get better range.

Downfall to the 6300 is no bluetooth.

TBH depending if you are good enough with computers you can get the stock card and if you want later get the 6230 as they sell for about 25 new online at places like amazon or eBay.

The stock vs 6230 is kind of a toss up. Most will say the 6230 will be better, which it may be, but it wont be like a night or day difference.

If $25 is in your budget do it, if not you can always get it down the road. Just requires the removal of the keyboard to access the card. One screw and 2 antenna wires is all the it plus into.

 

the 6300 has 3 antennas which will help increase ur range, reception, and max speed. The 6230 has 2 antennas.

 

ah ok. I think I'll go ahead and upgrade. It doesn't cost that much anyway. I just didn't want to blow off money on something I wouldn't need.

 

It goes like this:

Stock: 1x1 antennas (send, receive), 150Mbps, Bluetooth
6230: 2x2 antennas, 300Mbps, Bluetooth
6300: 3x3 antennas, 450Mbps, No Bluetooth.

It's a common misconception that the extra antennas will boost your range- they won't. What they will do is increase overall throughput (as shown by the overall speed increase) and stabilize your signal at range. What this means is that your 6300 card will have better signal at the same distance from the router than the 6230 or stock. Wifi is still limited to ~100-250ft indoors due to interference and broadcasting power.

You will notice the signal increase regardless of the router you're connecting to, but you may not notice a speed improvement. You need to connect to a Wireless N router that supports 300 or 450Mbps connections to have that (and they aren't everywhere yet).

 

I look at the 6230 as a way to upgrade to bluetooth for $25 with better wifi reception as a bonus.

 

That sounds right. I never understood why the 6230 comes with BT but the 6300 doesn't!

 

Lol, blame intel.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Can a bluetooth dongle perform as good the bluetooth included in the 6230?
If so, then maybe a bluetooth dongle could also be considered as an option.

 

The performance shouldn't be any worse, though it may be slightly shorter range (though Bluetooth in general is very short range anyway). There shouldn't be an issue with using an external BT module other than it needing a USB port

 

How do the bigfoot cards compare to these options?

 

The 1102 has lower latency and generally better performance due to better software than the intels. 1103 is just like that, except with 3x3 450mbps

 

In short:

1102 is equivalent to 6230 300Mbps
1103 is equivalent to 6300 450Mbps

The difference between them and the Intel's is in the software that Bigfoot uses to reduce latency with QoS (Quality of Service). Also, the Bigfoot cards do not have Bluetooth.

 

The QoS software changes that the Bigfoot cards use can be done manually on your router, if I recall correctly.

 

At the time the 6300 was introduced by Intel, they were not doing a combo card (BT) at all. The 6300 is a 2010 release and the 6230 is a 2011 release.

What does the future hold for the 6300? We may know something in January at CES...
_

 

I highly recommend NOT going with the Intel 6300. Stay far away from this card.

It takes upwards of 2-3 minutes for the card to kick on when resuming your laptop from sleep. Completely inexcusable. If I knew then what I know now, I would have went with a Killer card. As it stands, I'm pretty close to buying one, installing it, taking the 6300 card and inflicting various types of torture on it until finally beating the ever-loving crap out of it with a hammer.

 

My 6230 is exactly the same as your 6300. Usually if I need wifi from sleep it is much faster to reboot with my SSD. Which is just sad. Are we sure this is caused be the card/drivers?

 

At this point I don't care if it's the drivers or the card itself.

If it's the card, screw Intel for making a crappy product.

If it's the software, screw Intel for not releasing updated drivers/software to resolve the issue.

 

Any resellers out there want to sell me a Killer 1102 or 1103 OEM card?

 

I'm not sure about this, but I think centrino technology in intel helps keep a longer battery life.

 

are there any firmware upgrades to fix the sleep issue?

 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

The grass must really always be greener on the other side, huh?

I am on the verge of buying a 6300 to replace my Killer 1102. I have already bought a USB card, which takes minutes to connect, to replace the Killer. It's an awesome card, tech support is very helpful- it connects like mad and is blazing fast.... but it's an atheros, and it hickups once in a blue moon. And THAT is inexcusable. Different opinions, I assume.

There's nothing like a death because the 3800ms spike decided to rear its ugly head.

 

Very helpful info on the 6200 vs 6300, thanks.

 

No matter which wireless card and company you wish to invest your money in, be fully aware that's it's only a piece in the wireless networking puzzle.

A perfectly performing operating system is a good way to start.

Use a good uninstaller program to uninstall old drivers and remover left over registry entries and files the programs built-in uninstaller doesn't remove.

Different driver versions effect performace differently;better on one band vs the other or less lag for examples.

The new Killer beta wireless driver is an example of this.

Setting up your router and wireless card correctly helps greatly for all setups.

Distance from the router and going through floors and walls will greatly effect connectivity.

Choosing the right security,band,channel,channel width are also very important.

Does your router compliment your wireless card.

Downloading depends mostly on the source.