Laptop WLAN card revision number

[Charlie98]

I am replacing the processor on my daughter's Dell laptop and in the process I broke off one of the connectors on the WLAN card... 😳 It's a Broadcom DW1490... pretty standard fare for the Dell, I believe, but it's also REV A04. Is that the firmware revision, or is that actually a hardware revision number? ...and does it matter?

 

[ther00kie16]

Shouldn't matter. Revisions can include hardware and/or firmware/driver changes. If you get the right driver for the replacement, it shouldn't matter what card you get.
I see it's pretty darn cheap on ebay. But if you are going to replace it, might as well upgrade it to something like the Intel 1030, which has 802.11n and bluetooth, for $6 more.

Check that, wifi whitelist exists so you need to google whether or not your model has it if you want to install a different card, in which case revisino #s may be relevant.

 

[Charlie98]

Shouldn't matter. I see it's pretty darn cheap on ebay. But if you are going to replace it, might as well upgrade it to something like the Intel 1030, which has 802.11n and bluetooth, for $6 more.

I wondered if I could upgrade, but don't know enough about the cards to make a good decision.

 

[ther00kie16]

I wondered if I could upgrade, but don't know enough about the cards to make a good decision.

Yea, remembered the bit about wifi whitelist (due to FCC regulations regarding wifi cards + antenna combos). Google your model and see if it checks against a whitelist in BIOS or whether others have successfully upgraded their cards. People have also modified BIOS to remove whitelisting but it sounds as if you wouldn't want to try that.