Wifi card with Mimo, and bluetooth ?

[ch_Esperado]

I have VERY poor download speed and  stability with my original wifi card. Near unusable in 2.4GHz. (<10Mb/s).

Hi, folks,

I have several questions:

My original wifi card is INTEL 512AN_MMW ( WIFI LINK 5100 )

1- How to troubleshoot internal antennas cable ?
2-I have 3 antenna cables in my laptop. One unplugged marked MIMO (3) , and only two plugs on the card why ?

3-IS-it possible to upgrade this card, and if yes, any advice ?

4- If I can upgrade, is-it possible to add Bluetooth ?

5- Are the very little commercial dongles with wifi 6 and Bluetooth sensible enough, or is-it a lot better to chose one with an antenna ?

Thank in advance.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Your notebook has a BIOS whitelist which makes upgrading the internal wifi card impossible.

You have the best model wifi card available at the time.

If you are fairly close to a wireless router, the nano size wifi adapters without additional antennas should work fine.

They make some USB dual band AC (wifi 5) models that also have Bluetooth.

XVZ Adaptateur réseau USB WiFi Bluetooth dongle, 600mbps double bande 2.4G/5G pour ordinateur portab...

[ch_Esperado]

It confirms all what I have read. Thanks a lot, Paul. Your care is greatly appreciated.
Just stay the question about antenna cables.
One of them was a little crushed between the PC and the screen. When I test them with the ohmmeter on the sockets, the 1 is open, the 2 and 3 are short circuited. I do not know if it's normal.  Nor what can the 3 (Mimo) be used for if this wifi card is the only one that can be used.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

While I am not a PC repair tech by trade or training, I would say that you have a bad antenna wire.

They are basically tiny, delicate coaxial cables, so if any one of them is crushed, it is very likely the thin copper wire in the middle that is insulated from the metal braiding has joined with the braiding and no longer works properly, or has broken and no longer makes contact from the transceiver in the display panel to the wifi card's antenna terminal.

You would probably have to replace the antenna wires (or at least the damaged one), and if the wifi adapter is no good, you would have to replace that with the exact same part number or your notebook will not boot up.

Also, since you are running W10, there is no driver support for that model card (it is using a W7 driver), and has been known not to work well on W10--even if everything was in perfect condition (antenna system and wifi adapter).