mini-pci wifi cards - Atheros

We currently have Dell internal 1300 mini-pci (not express) wifi cards
in our Dell laptops. They use the Broadcom chipset.

We can see a couple of nearby WAPs.
My wife's Fujitsu laptop - with an Atheros internal card -
can see about 12 nearby WAPs...

I'm wondering about getting an Atheros card for our laptop
to see if the sensitivity is actually better ?

This was one of the few places I could find it -
http://www.oxfordtec.com/us/MiniPCI-...duct_info.html

comments ?

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"If everything seems to be going well,
you have obviously overlooked something." - Steven Wright

ps56k wrote:
We currently have Dell internal 1300 mini-pci (not express) wifi cards
in our Dell laptops. They use the Broadcom chipset.

We can see a couple of nearby WAPs.
My wife's Fujitsu laptop - with an Atheros internal card -
can see about 12 nearby WAPs...

I'm wondering about getting an Atheros card for our laptop
to see if the sensitivity is actually better ?

This was one of the few places I could find it -
http://www.oxfordtec.com/us/MiniPCI-...duct_info.html

comments ?

--
----------------------------------
"If everything seems to be going well,
you have obviously overlooked something." - Steven Wright




From my experience, the Broadcom wifi cards are among the weakest for
wifi reception. You may find that your Dell laptop rejects an Atheros
card. It all depends on the model. I have not done enough tinkering
around with enough Dell laptops to determine if the Dell laptop BIOSes
accept only certain wifi cards. (Not enough time, and no $$ in it for
me.) I did encounter difficulties with several miniPCI wifi cards in
older Dells like the Inspiron 8200 and its twin, the Latitude C840.

Intel cards generally provide good wifi reception, better than the
Broadcom. Dell has often shipped systems with Intel cards, so they are
generally a better bet than Atheros cards. Use your service tag on the
Dell web site to find a list of the drivers and supported cards for your
model of Dell laptop. Then get one of the supported Intel cards.

On the other hand, if lack of really good wifi reception is not a real
handicap, why switch?

.... Ben Myers