WiFi module update for a G500?

[Rob Mayercik]

Trying to help my sister with the wifi connection speed she's getting on her laptop (a G500 running Windows 10).

Her WiFi module seems only to have a/b/g/n capability, and it's limiting her connection back to the router - running her Xfinity internet speed test is showing the laptop only managing about 25-30 Mbps download speed on Wifi where her iPads (personal and work) seem to connect with AC and are seeing nearly 200Mbps download speed against the same router.

I was poking at it over the weekend with my own machine (a Middleton-eqiupped T61p that I upgraded a few months back to an Intel AC7260), and was able to get about 90Mbps connecting under the AC protocol so it seems like the bottleneck is her WLAN module.

Unfortunately, from what I've been reading the whitelist in the BIOS doesn't include any AC-capable adapters. Is there an already-downloadable BIOS version for the G500 that removes the whitelist similar to what Middleton did for the T6x machines so we can put a more recent internal module in? All I've found thus far is a process that involves taking a snapshot of the BIOS image and sending it off to someone via a forum post to get it hand-tweaked

Alternately, what would be a good USB wifi module for this computer? it has a single USB3 port, but it's right next to the left-side shift/ctrl keys so something with a big antenna probably would become quickly annoying when typing.

[RealBlackStuff]

Check this: https://medium.com/@p0358/removing-wlan ... 033a5a5e5a

[Rob Mayercik]

Thanks, I'll read through that link over the weekend.

[Rob Mayercik]

Just realized I never ended up posting "the rest of the story"...

I did review the link RBS provided and was intrigued, but I was having a little trouble figuring out how to determine which chip on the motherboard was the BIOS one. Since I was trying to NOT have my sister's computer down for an extended period of time (she depends on it for work), I searched Amazon and recommended a USB3.0 WiFi key (<$20) to try first - go for the simple solution first, eh?

Well, that turned out really well - once she got the drivers installed and disabled the integrated WiFi, she's connecting at a little shy of 200Mbps, and she's perfectly happy with it that way.

I may still investigate getting one of those little programmers, but it's now no longer an "urgent" thing.

Thanks again for the link, I did find it very interesting...