Z1: WiFi/Bluetooth upgrades

I feel pretty dumb having to ask this, but time is short and I need a new wifi card. Does the Z1 use a separate physical card for the wifi radio? I'm trying to find out because my Intel 6200 OEM wifi card is definitely the culprit behind inconsistent wifi speeds - trust me, I have isolated it to this, and controlled for every other possibility.

In replacements I'm looking at the Intel 6200, which is the OEM wifi card in the Z13 (2010/11 version) and the 6230, the only difference being that the 6230 also has Bluetooth 3.0, presumably using the same two antenna wires.

In device manager, there is a "Bluetooth Device: Personal area network" just above the Intel 6200 A/G/N but I think the former is just software. Am I correct?

Bottom line: Better to replace like-for-like and get the 6200 or get the 6230 with Bluetooth 3.0? I'm pretty lame about Bluetooth (duh!) but I'm thinking Bluetooth 3.0 would be a step up from the Bluetooth version the Z13 currently supports.

Thanks for your help, and patience!

 

You can use any wifi card you want. Just make sure it is a half width mpcie card. 6230 does work (computercowboy and others successfully performed the retrofit with a z1). You will have 2 seperate bluetooth devices then, but iirc you can pop off the z's builtin bt module from the mobo if you don't need it.

I don't know whether vaio smart network service is compatible with that Upgrade, though but I think it should. If not, I'll provide you with my modified version of it.

One last hint: when you transplant, note the position of the black and grey colored wifi antennae wires so you dont switch them on the new card (Main,aux).

 

Thanks Pyro. Will the irc pop up automatically when I install the 6230? Will the bt on the 6230 be a different version than the native Z13 bt? Does the combo of wifi speed dropping in half and constantly dropping by signals sound like a bad riding card even though bt is from a different source?

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