WLAN card and antenna upgrade - am I on the right track?

[oldnick72]

HI,

I have an elderly 15 Notebook which runs the Realtek RTL8188EE 802.11 bgn wifi adapter with a single antenna.

Recently the indicated wifi strength dropped to near zero, and pages load as slowly as you would fear.

I have found that the antenna has frayed in two around the hinge, and after a bit of looking on here it seems much better WLAN cards are available with bluetooth which will be handy.

Are these the right numbers?

card #710661-001

antenna #732063-001

Last question, once I've replaced the card will Windows find and run the driver for it?

Thanks in advance, 

Nick

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi, Nick:

The Intel 7260AC (710661-001) Wi-Fi card requires two antenna wires in order to work properly.

Chapter 3, page 20 of the service manual has the antenna kit part numbers your notebook uses based on touchscreen or non- touchscreen and the part numbers don't match the one you posted.

c04409502.pdf (hp.com)

Antennas (includes wireless antenna cables and transceivers)

For use in models without a touch screen     HP part #749638-001
For use in models with a touch screen           HP part # 774163-001

W10 will automatically install the Wi-Fi driver, but not the Bluetooth driver.

Older operating systems will not install either driver.

There is no easy way to find the W10 Intel 7260AC Bluetooth driver, so if you are running W10, let me know and I will post the link to my Skydrive folder that has the last Wi-Fi and Bluetooth drivers Intel released for the 7260AC, which I had saved a while ago as I had the same card.

[oldnick72]

Hi Paul,

Due to a situation beyond my control I had to go with my best guess regards part numbers.

You are quite right, the antennas were not a good fit, I ended up having to fit them both to the same side and run the wiring behind the screen panel as the leads were too short.

However - it works! 

Thank you for the manual, it is saved for next time 🙂

Also thanks for your tireless contributions on here, I love a good forum and they rely on people like you 🙂

Cheers,

Nick

[oldnick72]

Also for completeness yes the card ran itself with no drama, and windows update found the bluetooth driver painlessly.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, Nick.

Thanks for letting us know how your notebook's Wi-Fi card upgrade project went.

Glad that Windows update installed the Bluetooth driver for the 7260AC card because normally it does not as evidenced by the many posts asking for a W10 Intel Bluetooth driver for the 7260AC Wi-Fi adapter.

Cheers,

Paul