HP notebook wifi whitelist (card upgrade)

[cldlhd]

I just orderer an intel 6300 dual band card and I guess I won,t be able to use it? I,ve tried to order a dual band card twice from the hp parts store and both times I was sent single band. I downloaded the driver from hp that includes the 6300 but not sure how to deal with the whitelist. I have a dv7 6b32. Does hp realise how much of a turn off this is for brand loyalty? I get a laptop with intel i7 etc , I have a dual band router but can,t take advantage of the 5ghz. I don,t even mind having to pay a little extra for something that should have came with the laptop in the first place I just want the right part that will actually work!

[pbug56]

To begin with, HP's part numbers for wifi cards are not all correct.  Order the 6230 from the number in the DV7 repair manual and you get something completely different.  2nd, even though the 6230 is SUPPOSED to work in the DV7's, an outside one (ordered from a 3rd party) will never work, and even if you could get a 6230 from HP (ordered out of an Envy manual, for instance) it won't work - the whitelist does not cover it.  I know because a HP case manager and I tried that.  The 6230 is apparently only meant to go into laptops whose makers intend for its use.  So no, I don't think that a 6230 will work for you UNLESS you modify the bios, and even then who knows.  I tried the 6230 I had on hand in a Vaio laptop; it just would not work.

The irony is that HP makes it very easy to get to the wifi card, but that you can only really use what it comes with.  I've made the obvious point to them that putting garbage cards in an expensive laptop really hurts HP, but they clearly don't care how many customers they lose.

[gbrown]

For all of those who think taht modified bios will void your warranty, bwahahaha just reflash your bios to official hp one and send in for warranty. they will never know your using modded one before.

[gkline]

[quote=norrie4343]firstly upgrading your bios to the whitelist removed bios is childsplay, the bios loader does all the work for you as they are original hp bios with whitelist stripped out,once this is done you can put a wireless n card with 3 connectors into a laptop with only two antenna connections and it works at full speed and receives good signal. although hp do not want you to do this its all basic stuff, the only rules generally are intel cards do not work that well with amd chipsets but realtek atheros broadcom etc are all pretty generic.[/quote]

"Childsplay."  Really.

Then lets see you do that with the RSA signed BIOS files that HP has been delivering for the past few years.  If the RSA signature fails, the BIOS will not update and actually fails mid-way to semi-brick your laptop.  If you are a genius and have some miraculous way to turn it into childs play, by all means--do share!

[pepe999]

you can put a wireless n card with 3 connectors into a laptop with only two antenna connections and it works at full speed 

Are you sure about this? The third connector/antenna is optional but it won't work at full 450Mbps without it. I had to install a third antenna to my dv6 (see the signature) to get the full 450Mbps connection and even this is not at maximum further away from the router.

[gkline]

^ I've also heard that in order for a WiFi card to fully utilize 450Mbps, a three antenna connectors must be used.

Pepe, I am interested in learning about how you modified your dv6 to accommodate a 3rd antenna. Was it installed inside the laptop lid, somewhere in the main casing, or externally?

Also, with respect to this white list, I discovered that my BIOS white list has a network card entry for one that is not in the manual.  It is the Ralink RT3592.  While I'm not all that keen on Ralink given my rather pitiful RT5390 performance, I'm hopeful that this 300Mbps model will at least work better.  My problem is that I do not know what the actual product number is.  I'm trying to search on this card to see if there's more than one product number... and my hope is that if there's only one then it'll be correct.  Does anyone here have access to a universal product number listing for all HP WiFi cards?

[pepe999]

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@gkline wrote:

^ I've also heard that in order for a WiFi card to fully utilize 450Mbps, a three antenna connectors must be used.

Pepe, I am interested in learning about how you modified your dv6 to accommodate a 3rd antenna. Was it installed inside the laptop lid, somewhere in the main casing, or externally?

Also, with respect to this white list, I discovered that my BIOS white list has a network card entry for one that is not in the manual.  It is the Ralink RT3592.  While I'm not all that keen on Ralink given my rather pitiful RT5390 performance, I'm hopeful that this 300Mbps model will at least work better.  My problem is that I do not know what the actual product number is.  I'm trying to search on this card to see if there's more than one product number... and my hope is that if there's only one then it'll be correct.  Does anyone here have access to a universal product number listing for all HP WiFi cards?

---

Hi,

The original two antennas were at the top of the LCD lid cover (the new dv6-7000 have it at the bottom). I just bought a spare antenna for a 15.6" laptop and installed it on a free space at the top. The wires are under the screen I think. It's a while and I have sold it to a work mate.

I have found out myself that some cards work even not listed as compatible so it's a kind of lottery to pick the right one which is not listed but you want it. I'm going to play with a dv6-7000 series laptop as I have ordered two different Intel 6235 chips and both without HP compatible part numbers. I'll see how it works. The original chip was an Intel 2230 but it's a single band card and these won't be in my laptop.:)

When I was repairing that Dell from the signature I went to Dell forums (or google) and they say that Dell use the whitelist too but I pulled the old Intel 1000 out, then tried Intel 6200 and 6235 and both worked well even with the same drivers.

[pbug56]

Interesting.  I have a DV7 sent me by HP to replace a DV9030 under warranty, and it came with a very poor wifi card.  HP actually sent me a better card to put in, one that the manual said should work - and it was blocked by the whitelist.  Oddly enough, the older laptop did have a 3 wire antenna system, while the new one had only 2.  It is strange; as wifi gets faster and faster, HP laptops wifi cards get slower and slower.

[pepe999]

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@pbug56 wrote:

Interesting.  I have a DV7 sent me by HP to replace a DV9030 under warranty, and it came with a very poor wifi card.  HP actually sent me a better card to put in, one that the manual said should work - and it was blocked by the whitelist.  Oddly enough, the older laptop did have a 3 wire antenna system, while the new one had only 2.  It is strange; as wifi gets faster and faster, HP laptops wifi cards get slower and slower.

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I have seen quite old laptops with Intel 5300 in it. However, these are only wifi chips and not combos. I don't know why but recent motherboards don't have internal bluetooth modules anymore and this is why HP use mostly combo cards. On the other hand these cards are probably more energy demanding than single chips and because of the battery life they pick single band combo chips as dual band chips might drain more battery. A new mtb for that dv6-7000 arrived this morning so I will need a better CPU (some core i7, not Core i3) and then I can start playing with the wireless chips. Dv6-7000 and dv7-7000 should use the same BIOS so any chip working on my laptop should work on dv7-7000 too.

[HilBilly]

I  find it funny that this thread has been going on so long, yet HP has done nothing about it.  I just came looking on how to get an internal card to work on my DV6, as I got tired of lugging around an external.  Then I see that this one thread has over 12,000 views and there are several other wifi threads about the same issue.  Since HP makes me buy HP branded wifi cards, my next laptop will not carry the HP brand. 

Anybody else going to buy HP again, knowing about this problem?

-=john=-