D150 with Intel 5100 802.11n wifi card?

Hi

Im thinking of pulling out the atheros card and replacing it with a intel 5100 card which comes fairly cheap. And i have 2 worries:

1. Will the existing antenna(s) work with the 5ghz feature with no problems, as i intend to use 5ghz at home due to 2.4ghz beeing fairly crowded here (have a 5ghz router already)

2. Will the hardware switch still work with a non-default card?

I hope someone have already tried this and can give me some advice

 

Yep - it sure should work. I'm running an Intel 4965AGN Wireless N card in mine (not the 5100, tho').. A couple of comments...

Obviously - you'll have to reinstall the drivers for the Intel card. As well - the 4965AGN uses three antennas, while your (and mine) D150 only has two. You can use two antennas - but throughput will be limited by only two antennas. My solution was to buy a pair of Hitachi antennas from eBay for $10 shipped - and installed one on the third PCIe card connector. It worked just fine. As well - before you ask if I tore apart my D150's screen for the 3rd antenna - nope - I didn't Rather, I mounted it next to (on top of actually, using part of an ESD bag between the card & the antenna) the card & the the PCIE vent screen and wrapped the extra wire length into the un-used space behind the SATA drive bay. Even with that - I'm pulling 220 to 280Mbps through four walls with a N router.

No problems with the BIOS locking it out, either..

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks a lot. Im pretty sure the 5100 only has connectors for 2 antennas, whereas you need a 5300 to use 3 antennas, so that shouldn't be a problem. But regardin the switch to turn wifi on and off, is that still working for you ?

 

My pleasure.. As well - yes, the on/off switch still works without issues. But (you knew there just had to be a "but" ) my install was for a different Intel wireless card, which I'm not sure would make any difference at all - but...

Again, hope this helps!

 

As long as it is mini-pci-e it should work. The intel 5100 should work.

Once you get yours working, Im going to try to get one for this. I realllly like Intel wirelss cards.

 

Ok, i bought one and installed it, which was no problem... And for normal use it works just great... But if i transfer a large file i get 100% cpu usage, and the system is totally unusable untill the transfer is done... However if i connect using b or g only, or walk in the next room where the signal is poorer and the speed drops the d150 becomes responsive again... Is 802.11n really that cpu hungry compared to 802.11b/g?

 

Any update to the high cpu problem? Thinking of trying this mod but want to know the status.

 

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