Upgrade wireless card

[jj2801]

Hi Paul,

I have same question for my HP 250 G7 8th Gen i7. I did try fitting an intel AX200 wifi6 but it had two antenna plugs where as the realtek wifi5 that came out only had one. The AX200 would also intermittently stop working and not be available as an option. I have since returned to the realtek. Can you advice what wifi6 internal card i should look for please. Or could it be the ax200 card was just faulty. thanks in advance John

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, John:

In order for any Wi-Fi 6 card to work, the notebook has to have an antenna wire connected to each of the Wi-Fi 6 card's terminals.

That would partially explain why the Intel card is not working correctly but it would probably not explain why it quits working altogether.

If the card was not supported, it would not have worked at all-- right from the get-go.

It would have not shown up at all in the device manager, or it would have been blocked from starting.

So, it's hard to say what the problem is regarding the card not working at all unless the missing antenna wire is that critical.

My assumption was that the Aux terminal helped somewhat with Wi-Fi reception but that its main purpose was Bluetooth reception.

I have the HP 255 G7 (AMD version of the 250 G7), and it has the Realtek RTL8821CE AC Wi-Fi adapter with a single antenna.

I knew that I didn't want to go through the trouble of ordering the dual antenna kit listed in the service manual and completely disassembling the notebook including the display panel, to add a second antenna wire.

So, I live with the Realtek Wi-Fi 5 card.

The Intel AX200 or AX210 would be the only cards I could think of that might work in your notebook assuming it had two antenna wires.

These are also the only part numbers/SPS numbers that might work:

Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 ax 2×2 + Bluetooth 5.0 MU-MIMO M.2 2230 non-vPro    HP part #L35282-005.

Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E 2x2 AX + Bluetooth 5.2 M.2 2230 non-vPro   HP part # M27269-005.

If you do not plan on adding the second wire, I recommend you abandon the idea of upgrading the Wi-Fi adapter.

The dual antenna kit part number can be found in chapter 3, page 20 of the 250 G7 service manual.

Maintenance and Service Guide HP 250 G7 Notebook PC

Dual antennas   HP part # L20444-001

Cheers,

Paul

[jj2801]

Thanks Paul,

yes strange why the ax200 would work sometimes, the download speed too wasn't what i was expecting from the ax200 so maybe it is faulty, who knows ! Like you say my current realtek card has only one wire.

My friend has connected to my 1GB internet and is getting fast speeds, he has a HP 250 G9 with realtek 8852BE, do you know if i could install this wifi card ? 

thanks john

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, John.

Yes, you probably could install the Realtek card, but you will run into the same issue as that card will also need to antenna wires to work properly.

This would be the one in the 250 G9:

Realtek 8852BE Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.2 WLAN    HP part # M91238-005

I'm surprised that the Realtek AX card is working so well.

All I see on this forum is post after post of folks complaining about that model card dropping connections, slow performance, etc.

Many want to swap it out with an Intel AX200/210.

[jj2801]

Ok thanks Paul. 

I think i'll try another AX card maybe i was just unlucky. I 'll post back here if/when i get this working.

thanks again.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.