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Whats The Best most compatable Wireless AC Wifi for W520
Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2017 2:45 pm
by upgrades
I have 6300 wifi installed at moment but wifi has much improved since. Someone have any personal hands on experience on improving the internal wifi for this lenovo model? I dont want to damage the laptop doing this upgrade. Thanks for your help
Re: Whats The Best most compatable Wireless AC Wifi for W520
Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2017 7:57 pm
by ajkula66
Your system won't accept a newer card without a modded BIOS being flashed first. Whether that's a risk that you're willing to take is entirely up to you.
My opinion is that AC wireless range is barely out of diapers and that waiting from a few more cards as well as router chipsets - mainly from Qualcomm/Atheros - would be a smart thing to do.
Re: Whats The Best most compatable Wireless AC Wifi for W520
Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 9:38 am
by upgrades
ill take your advice and wait for someting more compatible from intel. The 6300 i have inside should be more than enuff for now. Its 300-400mbs right?
Re: Whats The Best most compatable Wireless AC Wifi for W520
Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:21 pm
by MikalE
I upgraded my T520 to the Ultimate 6300AGN and it performs very well. Better than on the old card. It connects immediately upon boot or resume from hibernation or sleep, whereas the other card would not do that and would take up to a minute to connect in most cases.
A BIOS reflash was neccessary but went smoothly.
Re: Whats The Best most compatable Wireless AC Wifi for W520
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:21 pm
by xsixt
I believe the 6300 is the best you can get, so keep your current card. It's what I'm using, and no complaints at all.
Re: Whats The Best most compatable Wireless AC Wifi for W520
Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:25 am
by RealBlackStuff
With a modded BIOS (whitelist removed) the Atheros AR9380/AR5BXB112 is even better and faster (450mbps).
Re: Whats The Best most compatable Wireless AC Wifi for W520
Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2018 8:43 pm
by JayNYC
RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:25 am
With a modded BIOS (whitelist removed) the Atheros AR9380/AR5BXB112 is even better and faster (450mbps).
@RealBlackStuff does the W520 and T520 use different size wireless cards? The AR9380 is larger than, for example, the AR9280.
Re: Whats The Best most compatable Wireless AC Wifi for W520
Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 2:03 am
by RealBlackStuff
The AR9280 (2 antenna wires) and AR9380 (3 ant.) are available in both full size and half-size.
Currently I have most of my laptops running with (half-size) Intel 7260 AC cards (and an Asus RT-AC68U router).
These cards also include Bluetooth 4.0
Re: Whats The Best most compatable Wireless AC Wifi for W520
Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 2:22 pm
by JayNYC
RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑Tue Jul 24, 2018 2:03 am
The AR9280 (2 antenna wires) and AR9380 (3 ant.) are available in both full size and half-size.
Currently I have most of my laptops running with (half-size) Intel 7260 AC cards (and an Asus RT-AC68U router).
These cards also include Bluetooth 4.0
@RealBlackStuff if my laptop has 3 wires, will using a 2 wire connector half-size 7260 AC sub-optimize (impair) performance?
Re: Whats The Best most compatable Wireless AC Wifi for W520
Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 4:02 pm
by RealBlackStuff
Not unless you have/want/need MIMO.
Re: Whats The Best most compatable Wireless AC Wifi for W520
Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 10:49 pm
by TonyJZX
Discussion on this has been ongoing on the T400 and X200 side for eons.
I still beleive the 6300 is the best card if you want up to 450 on 5ghz. The 5300 is functionally identical.
These are the two mainstays for the last 10yrs it seems.
However they are not AC. Your typical choice would be the AC7260 with the 3rd line taped up and unused.
You can get up to 867Mbps on an AC1750 type router.
I personally do not have heaps of experience with BCM Atheros but I've seen around 300Mbps on the 5ghz band on these cards which makes me question why you would want them outside of a MacOS build.
Of course this is assuming you have sourced a whitelisted bios.
From my "touch and feel" I do not see a huge difference in 450 -> 867 except on large file transfers and in that case you may as well break out the GbE.