Intel AC 8265 in Spectre X360

[Ruede]

This post is intended to help other owners of X360 notebooks with wireless connectivity problems or who want to upgrade their wireless card from the ubiquitous Intel AC 7265 to a faster 8265 series.

I'd read online horror stories of wireless card upgrades being rejected by hp laptops because of the bios whitelist. Solutions posted about hacking the bios with a hex editor, while really impressive, require a brain superior to mine...

I picked up used HP Spectre x360 13-4193DX with wifi problems and used it for a while with an ethernet cable. I tried all the usual upgrading of wireless drivers to no avail. On this forum and elsewhere I read about problems with wireless cards on hp laptops so I opened the case and found that the two antenna cables were plugged in the wrong way round (ie. cable 1 in the connector slot for cable 2 and vice versa). Perhaps it was like that from the factory or the previous owner did that trying to fix the issue. I put them in correctly thinking I'd sorted it - but again no wifi signal.

So maybe my wireless card is a dud that needs to be replaced but given the large number of hp customers with the intel AC 7265 card having wireless issues I suspected there may be an incompatibility issue with some hp units. I read on this forum a helpful post by Blackknight7218 (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Wireless-and-Networking/Intel-AC-8260-in-Spectre-X360/m-p/603...) about a similar upgrade to an AC 8260.

So I got and installed the newest version I could find of the Intel AC 8265NGW series wireless card (P/N : G86C0007J610 - cost $20) - and BINGO! it worked as soon as I rebootedm updating the driver by itself.

Of course there is no way we can be sure that this will work on all X360 variants or other hp models - but $20 is not a huge loss if it doesn't - and worth a try if you're pulling your hair out because you can't make full use of an expensive laptop! The bigger risk is frying your laptop if you go about it in clumsy way - ie. be careful to avoid static discharge damage to components once you have the cover off.

One last thing - if you do this upgrade make sure to put the antenna cables in correctly. On my laptop the position and length of the cables made them align incorrectly with the connectors, so don't just push them in because they seem to line up. Ok the cables and the card are labelled in microscopic text but its not impossible to figure out.

Good luck 🙂