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    Need COnfirmation: Intel wifi 5100 in Z540EBB: Half mini card or not?

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by pardes3, Jan 15, 2009.

  1. pardes3

    pardes3 Notebook Evangelist

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    I am planning on swapping out the 5100 stock card since it has very very very poor N performance over 5ghz. I plan to swap it with 5300, but want to confirm that the stock is half height or not.

    Device Manager does not clearly say it, it only mentions HMC (half mini card) on rollback driver ... but I don't want to take that for granted.

    Anyone here have any info on this? BTW Z540EBB do not have wwan card installed.

    Thanks in Advance
     
    pardes3, Jan 15, 2009
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  2. pardes3

    pardes3 Notebook Evangelist

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    OK so I chatted with a technical support rep, who after looking the info up and consulting a superior has confirmed that the Z540-CTO have the HALF mini pcie card. :)
     
    pardes3, Jan 15, 2009
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  3. work_permit

    work_permit Notebook Enthusiast

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    Do you know if the 5300 outperforms the 5100 when connected to only 2 antennas? I assume there is no way to install a third antenna into the Z.
     
    work_permit, Jan 15, 2009
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  4. pardes3

    pardes3 Notebook Evangelist

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    you dont have to actually "install it". You can simply get a small 3rd antenna cable and attach it to the card and stick\mount it some where. That should be good enough. I did this with a dell, but since dell have a compartment for wifi card I just left the cable in there and that worked perfectly.
     
    pardes3, Jan 15, 2009
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  5. work_permit

    work_permit Notebook Enthusiast

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    work_permit, Jan 15, 2009
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  6. rpeters83

    rpeters83 Notebook Consultant

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    funny, I get very exceptional N performance on my 5100. however, my recently returned lenovo y430 had VERY poor N performance from its 5100. guess it's in the antennas.
     
    rpeters83, Jan 15, 2009
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  7. pardes3

    pardes3 Notebook Evangelist

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    intel 5100 has poor N performance mostly on 5GHz .... 2.4 is good. I have found ANTONLINE.com selling the intel 5300 half mini card for 40$ shipped. Now that we have the service manual for the Z (other thread) I will be swapping it out.
     
    pardes3, Jan 16, 2009
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  8. |SONY|

    |SONY| Notebook Evangelist

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    the 2x1 5150 is different than the 3 streams 3x3 5350. If you don't connect the third antenna, you will have mediocre performance on the 5350.
     
    |SONY|, Jan 16, 2009
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