How to replace intel wifi card on sz340?

The wifi on my vaio works very poorly. The range is terrible. I want to replace it with an Atheros based card. Does anyone know how to do this?

 

Are you sure it's the chipsets fault, not the antenae? Or perhaps not the computer at all. I've been very happy with the reception I'm getting on the intel WiFi on my new TX850. I previously used an Atheros based PCMCIA card and was always struggling to get good connections at home and elsewhere. My new TX blows it away.

Now if I could get the bluetooth to work half as good as the WiFi does.

All that said, I'd still love to hear the process of swaping the card. Yum, hardware hacking!

 

What antenae are you speaking of? I have a drawfull of wifi cards and several laptops. This is easily the worst, very difficult to work. I even bought a extender and it still has sketchy performance.

 

The built in one. I'm not suggesting you try to change it as I assume it's built into the chassis or screen. If you've tried others and the SZ is worse than perhaps swapping WiFi chips will help. But it may be another factor. I just wanted to make sure you weren't jumping to a conclusion. In my case the intel (pro 3945 a,b,g) in the TX850P works better for me than an Atheros based a/b/g card I was using on my old picturebook, and both of those work much better than a Linksys a/g card I had before that(chipset unknown to my memory). So you might also consider the intel pro abg if your SZ has just a basic a/g intel.

Good luck, let us know if you get any improvements however you come to them.

 

This SZ has the pro 3945 a,b,g. I have read about others with a similar problem. I have also read of plenty good things about the intel chipset.

 

oh i agree! sz wireless does sux poo.

My fujitsu laptop have built in Atheros WiFi and its 10 times better in school.

Sometimes I get 1 bar in my school library and my Fujitsu gets 3-4 bars.

If you want good WiFi card, get ORiNOCO WiFi card cuz its very strong and it as a little hole on the site so you can plug a external antenna. My brother got this for me last year and its pretty good. We have this big fat white Buffalo Antenna at home and I can connect to my get some crazy connection.

 

Thanks. I get great performance with a belkin pre n wifi card, but I wanted to see if I can replace the internal card on the unit.

 

I wonder if that's a reliability issue, not a one chipset or the other issue. But swapping to a new card and a new chipset would hit both birds with one stone.

 

I have to wonder if the TX is better than the SZ or if I'm just lucky. I have only tried the TX at home and at work. Perhaps it will fair worse in other conditions.

Those Orinoco card seem to be legendary. I wouldn't mind an antenna port just for wireless experimenting. I wonder if the wireless cards have the same connection, but internally.

 

Maybe I will call Sony. doubt they will have anything to tell me.

 

Good luck with that. Calling Sony for any reason is about as fun as poking your own eye.

But it is worth a try, you never know. Generally they are clueless, unhelpful and obviously just going by some stupid script rather than knowing anything about what they are supposedly helping you with. But get the right person and sometimes they are willing to find someone else who can help etc...

 

It's very easy to replace the wifi card. Search the forum for the tear down guide.

 

I did. I din't come up with anything for the SZ340.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1788218&postcount=19

 

Is the wifi card in the middle of the hard drive and cd in the photo on this page?

http://www.laptoplogic.com/resource...ESSID=e42eea46c2b37be187466b01db11690d&page=5

 

I tried the Megaupload. There is no link to download. I see the file mentioned.

 

Yes, that's the wifi card. You can follow the Laptop Logic guide if the megaupload link isn't working for you.

 

Thankyou very much. Now I have to decide if I want to void my warranty.

 

As long as you keep your existing card and remember to put it back in before you send your notebook to Sony, your warranty will be fine.

 

One way to improve your Intel Wireless Wifi signal if you're using the Intel software is to open the Intel PROSet/Wireless software. Select Advanced>Adapter Settings. Then scroll down the Property list to Power Management & set it to Highest.

Note that the default is set to quite low & doing the change as I mentioned will mean having shorter battery life but it will improve reception signal.

 

I tried this. Still not good enough. I wonder if maybe the antenna is not connected. It seems easy enough to open. I think I will give it a shot. Also, they latest Intel wifi software keeps disconnecting me. Windows wifi does not.

 

I installed the atheros card without a hitch. It seems to be working much better then the intel card. I will report my findings when I use it more.

 

Well the verdict is in. The Atheros card is working much better then the Intel Pro card(3945). I have twice range and no hicups. I don't know what is up with that card.

 

what's the model of the atheros card you replaced it with?

 

T think this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Atheros-SUPER-G...d-108Mbps_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQitemZ290081785156


There are not many Mini-PCIe-Adapters out there

 

GIGABYTE GN-WI01GT AirCruiser G

I bought it at ewiz $35 shipped.

 

Save yourself a few bucks by using this link

http://castle.pricewatch.com/s/search.asp?s=wi01gt

 

So i replaced my sz440 intel card with this atheros. How do i get it to work in vista? i have the windows update version AR5006X dated 12/21/2005. i need a newer driver probably. i can't get any wireless connections now. and can i use the lan connection utility to turn this on and off? thanks.

 

anyone know?