Question Half mini PCIe wifi card replacement for an old dell laptop ?

[varunmehta11]

I have a 2010 model Dell Studio 1458 laptop which has a Dell DW1520 Half mini PCIe wifi card which is a Broadcom BCM943224HMS chipset. Additionally, it has a separate Bluetooth card connected inside the display bezel.

I'm planning to upgrade the wifi card to support 802.11ac 5Ghz wifi connections, but i could only find Wifi+BT Combo cards with this interface/card size.

Is it ok to replace a Wifi card with a Combo card when there is already a seperate BT card present. Kindly suggest me a good(mostly compatible) upgrade Wifi card for the laptop. I'm interested in going for Intel 7260 or 3160 but not sure whether these combo cards would work.

CPU: Core i3-350M
Current OS : Windows 10 64bit(build 1903)
RAM: 8gb
SSD: BX500 480gb

 

[JackMDS]

Combo card should Not be a problem, you can disable one if you have two (whatever you choose).

Open the Laptop and check the Antenna arrangement to make sure that what you buy can use the current Antenna.

Since the Laptop is 2010, make sure that whatever you buy has the drivers for it and the OS.

I have and old Dell and I ended up using USB

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011T5IF06/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The speed is very good for short distance (3-30ft) in open environment.

 

[varunmehta11]

I'm sure Intel 7260 or 3160 would have driver support for Windows 10 even though i have read many people having connectivity issues in win 10. And, i prefer to use an internal wifi card since this laptop only has USB 2.0 ports.

I have attached the pics of my current wlan card which is a Dell DW1520 (Broadcom BCM94322HMS chipset).

As you can see it has 2 antennas (grey and black). So i hope it should work with dual-band AC wifi cards

I was wondering, if i should stick with a Broadcom 802.11ac card rather than going an Intel card since i have no idea what all brands are in Dell's whitelist.

 

[mxnerd]

AR9462 if you have doubt with Intel card

https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-PCI-Express-Half-Size-Atheros-chipset/dp/B012JQVUX8/

==

Oops. Not an 802.11ac card though.

==

Broadcom has a mini PCIe 802.11ac card that's affordable

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=BCM94352HMB+mini+pcie&_sacat=0

Bluetooth does not necessarily will work according to this
https://www.amazon.com/BCM94352HMB-802-11-867Mbps-WLAN-BT4-0/dp/B074Q2WDRM

• Important Notice: Please must check and confirm your computer's motherboard whether open USB bus before purchase, because this card is going Bluetooth USB bus, if the motherboard does not open the USB bus, then it's unable to use Bluetooth function, also in the device manager cannot identify the new USB Bluetooth hardware.