Replacing laptop's wifi card

[diegorevollo]

Hey, I have a Pavilion 15-ab153nr it has a AMD A10 processor and a Broadcom 43142 wireless card. I'm considering changing my laptop's wifi card since it gets a very poor signal even standing next to the AP. Reading the Maintenance and Service Guide one of the options listed for this model is this card:

Name: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 802.11 ac 2x2 WiFi + BT 4.0 Combo Adapter (non vPRO)

SPN: 784644-005

But looking it by it's spare part number I get another model every time:

Name: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160 802.11 ac 1x1 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 combination WLAN adapter

SPN: 784644-005

My question is, if I buy the Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 will my laptop support it? Or should I just replace it with the Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Before you do anything, you will have to first open up the notebook and confirm that there are two antennas connected to the BCM wifi card in there now.

On these new notebooks with single band wifi cards HP only includes one antenna with a lot of them, which is probably why the wireless reception is so lousy.

Dual band wifi cards will require two antennas to work at all.

And yes, you are correct.   The manual lists the wrong card.  That part number = the Intel 3160.

If your notebook has two antennas, I think the Intel 3165 will work too, but I'm not sure about the better Intel 7265.

[diegorevollo · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I just opened up my laptop. It has only one antenna but what I noticed was that the wifi card has two antenna slots (I'm not sure if this is the term) and the antenna was connected to slot number 2. I disconnected it and connected it to slot number 1 and now the wifi seems to be working just right.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

That is good news, because with only one antenna, there isn't anything you can do to get a better wifi card.

The antenna wire should have been connected to the terminal (connector) labeled as #1.

#1 is the main antenna connection.

The #2 terminal is for the auxiliary antenna to be connected to, which you don't have.

So you fixed a problem from the factory.