HP notebook wifi whitelist (card upgrade)

[pbug56]

Hard to disagree.  Though I"m not just annoyed at the bad wifi card, I'm annoyed that they only have 2 antennas now when my old DV9933 had 3 - because with 3 and removal of the whitelist you could have an internal 450mbps card instead of the junk the DV's now come with.

So while it's annoying to have to use an external wifi unit, at least I have one that works at 450mbps.  Of course, that means that when I move the laptop I've got to disconnect it, pack it up, etc.

[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.

[thomas__m]

sure, flashing a bios isn't difficult.

but:

what about warranty?

what if you brick your notebook? debrick possible (similar to *wrt and JTAG)?

is a hacked bios available ?

i would like to buy a non crippled product in the first place.

[norrie4343]

i agree totally that hp are out of order for what they are doing, i myself kept on asking them about the whitelist and why i could not put the wireless card of my choice in my laptop but they just kept replying like they knew nothing about it {acting dumb}. i agree if your laptop is under warranty don`t mess with it but mine is 3 years old so it was worth it. and the bios went on very easily and opened up my laptop to upgrade the wireless card & processor.

[norrie4343]

as in one of my earlier posts you will find whitelist removed bios versions here:http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/7681-This-is-no-request-thread!-HP-COMPAQ-bioses-how-to-mod...

[kaibigan284]

I was told that all brands of Notebook Computers have a "identifier or limiter" found in the BIOS to keep track of certain components and are found in the registry too, except for ASUS - yet that may not be true. I thought its just there to make sure the Computer knows what the subject is, then use it. Therefore all Computers do.

I found if there is a change in certain components it will be added to the registry, where I found the Wireless card, the Optical drive, and Network Adapter.

Older Computers react different in response to switching wireless cards, I found there are work arounds against the limiting action, to make them work, yet never as good as editing the software in the BIOS. Therefore a whitelist of components that work or do not work and the error message in newer Computers.

HP is too complex for me to change and substitute wireless cards, just wish I could, I have the HP210-2177nr and HP210-4000 CTO.  I was successful with the older Toshiba I have, I can switch the Intel 3945 for Intel 5100 in BIOS and Registry..

[kaibigan284]

If its "bricked" it can be fixed - Its just software mismatch. I did it several times, while finding how to do it, I did a software mismatch once - with a guess, therefore I avoid guessing.  You press certain keys on the keyboard with the battery out, using AC power, whille flash the BIOS with good software.

[pbug56]

What I don't get; if the DV7 shows wifi card X as one of the cards for that system, if you then order that exact card from HP why it still is blocked by the BIOS.  But I have concluded that at least some wifi cards, such as the 6230, have been designed to be 'tagged' by a given laptop maker for use in their own selected laptops.  So if I have a 6230 from maker A, maker B's laptop doesn't even see it despite the lack of a white list in that laptop.

[kaibigan284]

Perhaps I can explain it, if indeed I am on the subject:

I found while switching cards on a Toshiba notebook, I had to swap identifiers in the software, to the BIOS, to rewrite that part in the software (swap indentifers) I think there is, only one identifier at a time, therefore certain cards work - when the software is setup for that card.. I tried more than one card at a time in the software and my Computer was useless, then I had to purge the BIOS and install the right software again, Computer gives up with the wrong software information.

My Toshiba uses Phoenix and My HP uses Insyde for there software, for the BIOS, it takes knowing how to use there tools (software to modify the BIOS) to change a WIFI Card, therefore it knows what card to use, because the Identifiers explains where.

You could buy from Hp, or other good place for genuine cards, to buy from, yet the computer is setup for one card until the software in the BIOS is changed for the new card, it needs to know where to find the card, therefore to swap the indentifier.

[pbug56]

I used to think it was just the bios that was the issue - until I learned that even the wifi cards sold by a computer vendor could be tagged to only work with model x or y from that vendor.  Above and beyond absurd.  I know of nothing in a properly designed wifi card that should be specific to a a designated laptop.