Upgrade WLAN card in All-in-One Desktop PC

[Nasalis]

My HP Pavilion 27-n143d Touchsmart All-in-One Desktop PC is standard equipped with an Integrated Bluetooth 4.0 and Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n single band 2.4 GHz module. Would it be possible to upgrade this to a dual band 2.4/5 GHz module that supports Wireless LAN 802.11ac?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Most likely your PC only has one antenna connected to the wifi card in there now.

There is only one dual band wifi card that I know of that will work with one antenna, and that is this one...

Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11 ac 1x1 WiFi + Bluetooth 4.2 Combo Adapter (MU-MIMO supported)
L17365-005/915620-001/915621-001

The only place I have been able to find them is on eBay.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=915621-001&_sacat=0

I cannot guarantee the card would work in your PC. because the parts list for your model only lists the card in there now.

http://partsurfer.hp.com/Search.aspx?searchText=N4Q43AA

You might be better off buying an external USB dual band wifi adapter which would be guaranteed to work.

[erico]

That is possible, but quite involved.

Do you really want to replace the wifi antenna setup that is there. It would require a complete disassembly of the PC and sourcing an appropriate 2x2 antenna

A simpler solution would be to purchase a USB 802.11ac dongle to lug into one of the ports at the rear of the PC.

[Nasalis]

I must admit that the issue is actually mainly cosmetic. Earlier the internal card had intermittent problems and was replaced under warranty. While waiting for HP to send their technician, I purchased a TP-Link T9UH, but plugging the cable into one of the USB 3.0 ports at the bottom of the screen just looks very ugly. The ports at the back are all USB 2.0, if I'm not mistaken. Wouldn't that limit the performance of the T9UH, as the data transfer speed of USB 2.0 is limited?

Moreover, I also have a HP Pavilion 27-a271d which does have 802.11ac - very possibly the Realtek module that was mentioned by the other poster. I was hoping that it would be a matter of just swapping the modules (and I would be calling a HP technician to do that for me).

The main reason why I'm looking to optimize my wireless network speed is because my files are residing on a NAS. I'm not so worried about internet speed.

[Nasalis]

I wonder whether that is the same card that sits in my HP Pavilion 27-a271d. In that case the local HP technician would probably be able to supply and install it for me.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

The  27-a271d has the Intel 3168 AC wifi card, which has two antennas connected to it.

http://partsurfer.hp.com/Search.aspx?searchText=Z8G42AA

I think the Realtek card I posted will have a good chance of working.  I just can't guarantee it will.

It will give you the same 433 MBPS throughput the Intel 3168 card in your other PC has.

You can see that this card was designed to work with only one antenna cable.

Now, if you find that there are two antenna wires connected to the Broadcom card in your PC, then you can upgrade to the Intel 7265ac M.2 wifi card which has a throughput of 867 MBPS.  If it does, let me know, and I will give you a part number for one.