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I am using HP elite 2530p (spec). And Intel WiFi Link 5100 is an internal WLAN card.

I want to repalce this card with another one which uses ath9k driver module. There are a list of tons of devices and only I need to do is to choose one and I have already made a list of candidates.

One thing is, Intel WiFi Link 5100 has a MIMO capability of 1x2:2. And it was connected with main and aux antenna. Here's a back of my laptop.

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In this situation, is it okay to put a WLAN card with 2x2:2 MIMO configuration instead of Intel WiFi Link 5100 with 1x2:2 MIMO configuration?

And will ath9k driver will automatically detect its MIMO configuration?

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  • MIMO etc.. is not a problem, however your laptop might have a whitelist in BIOS thus most of WLAN card wouldn't work.
    – lex
    Jul 14, 2015 at 6:42
  • Then, 1. is there a way to bypass the whitelist or to add a new WLAN card in the whitelist? 2. what if I put a new WLAN card into a miniPCIE-to-USB adapter and connect it to USB port?
    – Jeon
    Jul 14, 2015 at 6:45
  • you need to flash a modded bios to bypass the list, so you need to find a proper bios/or find someone who can mod it for you. And the adapter wouldn't work, because miniPCIE supports both PCI-E and USB and most WWAN cards go through USB thus miniPCIE-to-USB adapter works on these WWAN cards. WLAN cards use PCIE and thus adapter wouldn't work.
    – lex
    Jul 14, 2015 at 6:49
  • Well... the only way is to hack the BIOS... I got it. Thank you very much.
    – Jeon
    Jul 14, 2015 at 6:54

1 Answer 1

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To answer this, you’ll need to figure out your Bluetooth antenna situation. Bluetooth uses the same 2.4GHz RF band that b/g/n Wi-Fi uses. Some systems’ antenna designs share antennas between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but the systems are carefully designed to make sure this can be done without one clobbering the other all the time.

In the original design/configuration of your laptop, one of those two Wi-Fi antenna leads didn’t have a transmitter hooked up to it. That lead might be combined with a lead from the Bluetooth module and attached to a shared antenna. Or the Wi-Fi Rx-only antenna and the Bluetooth Tx/Rx antenna could be separate, but placed so close to each other that there's not enough separation to allow Bluetooth to successfully receive Bluetooth traffic while the Wi-Fi card transmits Wi-Fi traffic on its nearby antenna (in the original setup, this wasn’t a problem, because the Wi-Fi radio chain hooked up to that antenna was Rx-only).

If you donÆt care about Bluetooth, never use it, and don’t mind keeping the Bluetooth radio turned off at all times, you don’t need to worry about this.

Other than that, it should work fine, if your new card fits the space, if your antenna leads can reach to where your new card's U.FL connectors are, if your new card’s EMI, power, and thermal profiles doesn't screw up other things in your system, etc.

Cards generally can’t detect whether antennas are connected or not, so they assume they’re connected and try to act to the card’s full capabilities.

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