Upgrading a WLAN card in a laptop.

bigdan676 · 3 Mar 2017 at 23:45

I recently got a Dell Inspiron 15R 5520 laptop and I want to upgrade the WLAN card, I am currently looking at one of these - Intel AC 7260 867Mbps Mini PCI WiFi Adapter.
- Does anyone know if this will work, or do you guys have any other ideas?

Cheers, Dan

MiSJAH · 4 Mar 2017 at 00:23

http://blog.parts-people.com/2013/0...520-wlan-wi-fi-card-removal-and-installation/

Not sure if it'll work though.

bigdan676 · 7 Mar 2017 at 20:10

Hi, thanks for that, I will try and find one what will work, that video will also help me

Cheers, Dan

Steeps · 7 Mar 2017 at 21:30

I've just ordered a 7260 to replace the wireless N card in my Dell Studio 15 (from 2010), hopefully it will be here by the end of the week.

Tr1pp · 8 Mar 2017 at 23:15

be sure that when buying the WLAN card that it comes with the 2.4 and 5ghz antennas, if not then you need to buy them separately otherwise you will get poor to no signal

Steeps · 10 Mar 2017 at 18:37

Just swapped out my Dell 1520 wireless card with the Intel 7260, connection hasn't dropped out like the N card was on my wireless and the connection is a lot more stable/faster. Used the existing antennas that the N card was connected to and it's working fine.

xs2man · 12 Mar 2017 at 12:05

Funnily enough, just last night I swapped out the wifi card on my Samsung RV511 to a 7260AC. It turns out it was the old Broadcom card that was stopping Windows 10 from installing on the laptop. I wanted the house working with Windows 10 all around for easier remote connectivity between devices, so it kinda had to be done. Was easy enough to do.

While I was in there though, I re-applied thermal paste to the processor / heatsinks, cleaned out the fan and heatsinks, doubled the RAM to 8GB, and fitted a SSD so overall, my 6-7 year old laptop now works much nicer. I also fitted a BluRay drive to it a couple years ago. I did look to see if I could upgrade the processor too while I was in there. But looks like about £50 for a quad-core for this machine, and after what I have already spent upgrading it, it doesn't look worth it for such old tech. Probably should get a new battery pack for it now though.

Steeps · 12 Mar 2017 at 22:55

Pretty much done the same, already had a 128gb SSD (500gb 7200rpm originally) but boosting that to 1tb, upped the ram to 8gb, new battery, replaced the screen cover and hinges with new. Wireless dropped out a couple of times so I think there is an issue with the homeplugs but the laptop looks and feels brand new with less than £300 spent on it (£200 on the SSD!), for a new spec that would be nearly £1k now.