Best Intel Wifi: 4865AGN, 5100 or 5300 ?

[khaverblad]

Having a T60 (2007-FRG with T7200 CPU) what would be the best wifi card (and adding a 3rd antenna) to choose if one would want to replace the original wifi card - 4865AGN, 5100 or 5300 ?

[miro_gt]

5300. You will have to have whitelist removed in BIOS to use it as it did not come as a standard option.

And you have mistake in the first card as it is 4965agn.

[khaverblad]

Guess that it's the 5300; would kind of be the natural choice; but then again there might be issues not know. Seen some negative reviews on the 5100. Speaking of never cards; are there other options from Intel to go with?

[TuuS]

All three of these will need a modified bios on a T60. I personally am very happy with the 4965agn cards, they work very well and are very inexpensive. The 5100 would be a good choice if you only have two antenna and you don't want to install a third, but if you do want to add a third, The 5300 is the newest of the three cards so there may have been some updates added to it, but the 4965 supports the same speeds and both support dual band and Mimo, the 5100 does not support mimo.

There is an atheros based card that will work in the T60 without a bios mod. It's the only "n" capable card that will.

[mikemex]

Like miro_gt said, if you have the whitelist removed you can play with other options. The newer the card the more power efficient will be (new manufacturing process, better power saving) although it probably doesn't really make that much of a difference. Performance is also likely to be better.

Something to be aware of is that MiniPCI-E cards come in full and half sizes. A half size card requieres an adapter to be installed in a full size slot.

[miro_gt]

in my other T61 I'm using 4965agn with two antennas only, as the laptop came with older 3945abg card thus no third antenna. The third port on the 4965 is a repeater of some sort and is supposed to aid in performance to the other two, but the card itself is a two stream thus only needs two antennas to function fine. And frankly I haven't noticed any difference between using 2 and 3 antennas on that one, as before the same card was in my primary T61 that had 3 antennas.

the 5300 on the other hand is a three stream card thus needs all 3 antennas to work at its full potential. It would of course outperform the 4965 given you have wifi router that can support three streams simultaneously.

Note that the supported speeds are the maximum that could ever be achieved theoretically, but in real life the speed that you'll operate at does not come even close to that. The best of the mainstream routers right now can achieve somewhere around 60mbps on average (with about 90mbps max if laptop is very close to router and no interference, so rare case).

also all of the listed cards are full size mini PCI, but you can use half sized cards with adapter.

[Backslashnl1]

Note that the supported speeds are the maximum that could ever be achieved theoretically, but in real life the speed that you'll operate at does not come even close to that. The best of the mainstream routers right now can achieve somewhere around 60mbps on average (with about 90mbps max if laptop is very close to router and no interference, so rare case).

Indeed, in contrast to wired networks, wireless is always half duplex, so your max download speed would be 150 mbit ~ 18,75 MB/sec. Theoretical.

I'm using the latest (and greatest ) Intel Ultimate-N 6300 WiFi card, which is capable of 450 mbit with 3 channels, but I have only 2 antenna cables attached.
Currently I use it with a Linksys WRT610N router, (N-300 Mbit) on the 5 Ghz channel. This is a high-end router from 2009. During local network file transfers I've seen it hit 17 MB/sec sometimes, but usually it is around 12-14 MB/sec (96-112 Mbit).

[khaverblad]

Backslashnl1,

I've noticed that there are quite a few complaints regarding that the network freezes when using 6300 card; lots guesses why; but one of them seems that the card get quite warm when transferring large files or streaming video. Is this something that you've noticed on your side.

[miro_gt]

...
I'm using the latest (and greatest ) Intel Ultimate-N 6300 WiFi card, which is capable of 450 mbit with 3 channels, but I have only 2 antenna cables attached.
Currently I use it with a Linksys WRT610N router, (N-300 Mbit) on the 5 Ghz channel. This is a high-end router from 2009. During local network file transfers I've seen it hit 17 MB/sec sometimes, but usually it is around 12-14 MB/sec (96-112 Mbit).

that is exceptionally good transfer for that router. I guess you must be in the same room with very little interference to get that high speeds over wifi. I even had to pull some info on it to see what it usually does, and here it is:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless ... l=&start=2

[BKthink]

Using a 4965AGN card with third antenna in my T60 project.

It's a nice improvement over the original card in all respects.

Recently upgraded from a Netgear WG102 AP to a dual-band Asus RT-N66U router. Actually kept the WG102 for G clients and use the RT-N66U for N clients. Really happy with the Asus so far. Generally seeing Win7 reported (not measured) 2.4GHz link connectivity at 144Mbps a couple rooms away from the router.

The Asus traffic log shows my last nightly 2.4GHz wireless client backup to a WHS hitting 1301.46kbps (=10.2Mbps).

Tempted to try the 5300 card with my setup....

BK

[miro_gt]

...
Tempted to try the 5300 card with my setup....

BK

you should, that's a nice router, top notch these days, will use all three streams to the full potential

I'm on a WNDR3700v2, as it replaced my old D-Link DIR-625 still N router, but what a difference .. LOL.

[TuuS]

in my other T61 I'm using 4965agn with two antennas only, as the laptop came with older 3945abg card thus no third antenna.

If you'd like to add a third antenna, send me you're address and I'll drop you one in the mail. You can let us know if it makes any difference.

The third antenna is for Mimo, multiple in, multiple out, and should help with reception and performance, but I think the difference will be seen only in cases where your two antenna reception is strained.

[Backslashnl1]

Backslashnl1,

I've noticed that there are quite a few complaints regarding that the network freezes when using 6300 card; lots guesses why; but one of them seems that the card get quite warm when transferring large files or streaming video. Is this something that you've noticed on your side.

I have never noticed any freeze or heat with this card Yesterday I copied 15 GB over the air, this went smoothly without any problem.

that is exceptionally good transfer for that router. I guess you must be in the same room with very little interference to get that high speeds over wifi. I even had to pull some info on it to see what it usually does, and here it is:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless ... l=&start=2

You're right, I installed the router (which I use as an acces point) in my living room and I'm about 4 meters away of it. Initially I installed it in the cupboard in the hall, but the reception was poor on 5 Ghz, about 2-3 bars out of 5. I decided to reinstall my old router (Linksys WRT54GL with tomato firmware) for older network devices on the 2.4 Ghz band, and the WRT610N on the 5Ghz band with N-speed only (instead of BGN mixed).
This setup is perfect for my situation.

[miro_gt]

If you'd like to add a third antenna, send me you're address and I'll drop you one in the mail. You can let us know if it makes any difference.

The third antenna is for Mimo, multiple in, multiple out, and should help with reception and performance, but I think the difference will be seen only in cases where your two antenna reception is strained.

are you offering to send me a free antenna to test and report results ? Because i'm already connecting at 300Mbit/s with the two antennas right now.

[JeffCullen]

I have used both the 4965AGN and 5300 with a WNDR3700v2. I didn't find the performance to be appreciably different when signal strength was good. However, the 5300 smoked the 4965AGN at lower signal levels. The 5300 seems to maintain most of its throughput until it just drops off completely, while the 4965AGN gets slower and slower, and ultimately its range is less than the 5300. I've since replaced the WNDR3700v2 with an E4200v1 and with the 5300, it's wireless heaven :)