Replacement Network card, possible?

[Hopfengarten]

Hello!

I have following Laptop:

Pavilion 15-cw1314ng, Product ID: 7PW91EA,  AMD Ryzen 5 Processor

My Wifi Card is: Realtek 8821CE 

I upgraded my WiFi at home to WiFi6. Because of some issues in the past, and the bad performance of the Realtek 8821CE, i want to replace it to a AX WiFi Card. No matter which one.

I heared about a whitelist in the Bios? Can somebody give me a information, if my Laptop has this whitelist, and if yes, is it possible to upgrade to a AX Card?

Thank you very much for any support on this!

Best regards,

Timo

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi, Timo:

HP does not release any info on what notebooks have BIOS whitelists.

Most of them made in 2014 or later do not.

However, you have a different issue and it's probably almost as bad as a whitelist.

Your notebook only has one antenna wire connected to the RTL8821CE Wi-Fi adapter because that's all it needs to work properly.

The only AX card that would probably work in your notebook is this one...BUT, it requires two antenna wires to work properly.

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

You should be able to find this model Wi-Fi card on eBay.  Search by the HP part number.

With only one wire attached to the Wi-Fi card's 'Main' antenna connection the card will work, but you will not have Bluetooth because the 'Aux' connection works the Bluetooth.  Without an antenna wire connected, there will be little or no reception.

There is a lot of work to properly add a second antenna wire which includes disassembling the entire notebook including the display panel area to run the second antenna wire, if you can even find the part you need that would fit.

Below is the link to the service manual, where you can find the Wi-Fi card removal and replacement procedure.

Maintenance and Service Guide HP Pavilion 15 Laptop PC

[Hopfengarten]

Hello!

Thank you very much for the quick and helpful reply! 

So the card will work with full WLAN functionality, when only 1 Antenna is connected. Right? 

Only Bluetooth will be affected?

Brgds, 

Timo 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

It seems that it will work pretty well according to this discussion on the Intel Wi-Fi forum.

No Bluetooth however, as I had mentioned earlier.

Solved: Re: AX200 with only one antenna (Blueooth issues) - Intel Communities

[Hopfengarten]

Hi! 

I ordered on ebay following card

https://www.ebay.de/itm/193585143793?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=707-127634-2357-0&ssspo=yYMjtxybTla&sssr...

And also a Dualband Antenna for the AUX Pin:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/111614418807?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=707-127634-2357-0&ssspo=yYMjtxybTla&sssr...

I'm curious if it works... I will let you know. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Looking forward to reading the results of your Wi-Fi card upgrade project.

Just make sure that the metal parts of the antenna you add don't contact anything metal on the motherboard.

[Hopfengarten]

Hi!

Good News! It worked very well!

The hardest part was to open the screw. It was very tightened.

Also i did not need to install the driver. Just plug and play.

I bought a second antenna for Bluetooth and were able to but it at that place were the HDD normaly is mounted. I have a SSD, so there was a good place. See the pictures. 

The only thing: The speed is not much better 😂  Maybe the original Antenna is not a good one? In wifi6 with 5 Ghz i get appr. 100Mbit/s download speed. Very close ti the router. With my mobile phone: 950Mbit/s.  Maybe i buy a other good Antenna to try. 

The Bluetooth is working very well. I only need it for my Mouse.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

That's great news.

I don't believe the original Wi-Fi antenna would be any different for different model Wi-Fi cards.

Maybe updating the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth drivers to the latest versions will help somewhat.

Wi-Fi:

Windows® 10 and Windows 11* Wi-Fi Drivers for Intel® Wireless Adapters

Bluetooth:

Intel® Wireless Bluetooth® for Windows® 10 and Windows 11*

[Hopfengarten]

Hi,

i made an update with the actual driver, and after a restart of the Laptop, i had full power:

The max would be 1000 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload. I'm 3 meters away from the modem. So perfect result for me 🙂  

I very appreciate your support.  

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance, and that is great news you are getting much better throughput results.