Wireless Card upgrade

[McMallatt]

Can I upgrade my Intel® WiFi Link 5100 with an

Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 in my Hpx 16-1730us?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, 

Check your notebook upgrade options for any supported cards you can install. You may need to contact HP directly and ask.  When you install an unsupported WLAN card, you will get a BIOS error 104 -- unsupported WLAN card. Remove card and reboot."  That is because HP has placed a BIOS lock on all unsupported WLAN cards.

Some very clever folks have been able to circumvent these BIOS locks by editing the BIOS to include the hardware ID of the device they installed. I have no clue how to do this, or even if it can be done on a  Hpx 16-1730us.

Paul

[pepe999]

I have the same card so I have done some research and found out that some people upgraded from 5100 to 6300 without any problems. 6300 has 3 antennas but you don't need the third one. I guess it might work but because of HP you may get a bios error..

edit: When you get that error, see this...

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/20223-Remove-whitelist-check-add-ID-s-to-break-hardware-res...

[pepe999]

I'm going to upgrade my 5100 to 6200 so I will reply how it works or if it works..

[Cyclops]

Nope...The BIOS will not support it...

BIOS supported wireless card are available in the Maintance and service guide... available on this link.. http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01612461.pdf

[pepe999]

Hmm, 104 error but I found out some ways how to remove the whitelist check. Haven't tried it yet but will do..

[McMallatt]

Let me know how it goes, does not sound all that easy.

[pepe999]

Done it..:)

It's a bit complicated and I had to sort it out on other forums but my brand new Intel Advanced -N 6200AGN works. It takes cca 5 minutes. All you have to do is to extract the BIOS in Phoenix bios tool, modify a module and save the changes. Then just flash the modified BIOS and it should work..

 Prerequisites:
- An hexadecimal editor like HXD
- Andy's tool Latest version

1- Extract spYourBios.exe, then extract XXXXXX.exe
2- Open XXXXXX.bin(same name like XXXXXX.exe) with Andy's tool
3- Once decompress, select "other" in manufacturer
4- At advanced choose: 'no SLIC' and 'Allow user to modify other modules' press done
5- Press GO and wait until the tool pauses and show popup(don't press OK yet).
6- In DUMP folder, edit the module E62F9F2F-4895-4AB5-8F1A-399D0D9C6B90_2_776.ROM, search the hexadecimal string 86 80 2C 42 86 80 06 13 and replace 06 by 01(this is difference between ID 5100 and 6200, just a single digit),save the modification.
7- Press OK on Andy's tool popup
The Andy's tool will notice about changes that were made and will reintegrate the module.

8- replace original_name.bin by the newly created original_name_SLIC.bin (rename it original_name.bin)
9- Flash using InsydeFlash.exe

In your case those IDs should be different so find them and take a shot..:)

edit: I should remind that each card has a different ID so search for the old card hexadecimal ID string(find in the device manager) and replace it by the new card hexadecimal string.

[pepe999]

I've just found another way how to do it.

1- Extract spYourBios.exe, then extract XXXXXX.exe
2- Open XXXXXX.bin(same name like XXXXXX.exe) with Andy's tool
3- Once decompress, select "other" in manufacturer
4- At advanced choose: 'no SLIC' and 'Allow user to modify other modules' press done
5- Press GO and wait until the tool pauses and show popup(don't press OK yet).
6- In DUMP folder, edit the module E62F9F2F-4895-4AB5-8F1A-399D0D9C6B90_2_776.ROM, search the hexadecimal string  75 6A B9 02 and replace 75 by EB,save the modification.
7- Press OK on Andy's tool popup
The Andy's tool will notice about changes that were made and will reintegrate the module.

8- replace original_name.bin by the newly created original_name_SLIC.bin (rename it original_name.bin)
9- Flash using InsydeFlash.exe

This should remove the whitelist check for Wlan cards from the BIOS at all.

🙂

edit: This manual was created by My Digital Life forums user TTAV134. All thanks belong to him..:)

[McMallatt]

And now the big question, do you see any gains from your effort?