Can I upgrade my Wi-Fi card to Intel AX200NGW on HP 15-ay007tx?

[NICKFURY1]

Hello HP Community,

I own an HP 15-ay007tx laptop and I’m planning to upgrade my Wi-Fi card to the Intel AX200NGW (Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5.1, M.2 NGFF 2230 A/E key).
I’ve already upgraded my storage to SSDs and installed a fresh copy of Windows.

Before I purchase the AX200 card, I’d like to confirm:

1. Does the BIOS on this model (15-ay007tx) support the Intel AX200NGW card?

2. Is there any whitelist restriction that might prevent the laptop from booting with this card installed?

3. If not compatible, what is the best Wi-Fi card upgrade that supports 5GHz band and Bluetooth 5.0 or higher?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Here's the problem with what you want to do...

Yes, the Intel AX200 non-vPro card will work in your notebook but since it only has one Wi-Fi antenna connected to the Broadcom Wi-Fi card it comes with, it will not work properly due to the missing second antenna wire and you will not have Bluetooth reception because that fully needs the second antenna wire in order to work.

It's not easy to properly install the second antenna wire.

It would require you to find and buy the dual antenna kit listed in chapter 3 of the service manual (which you will probably have a very hard time finding nowadays), and then the fun part is you have to completely disassemble the notebook including removing the motherboard and display panel assembly so you can properly route the antenna wires in order to have the desired Wi-Fi/Bluetooth reception.

So, if you want to go through all of that work, you can install this model card:

Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 802.11ax 2 × 2 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 5.0     HP part # L35282-005

The simplest upgrade to a dual band card where both the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth work with one antenna wire, would be to install this model Wi-Fi 5 card:

Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11 ac 1×1 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.2 Combo Adapter (MU-MIMO supported)   HP part # L17365-005

Below is the link to the service manual:

HP Notebook PC (Intel) * Models: 15-ay000 – 15-ay099 * Models: 15-ay100 – 15-ay199HP 250 G5 Notebook...