Half Mini PCIe WLAN for Windows 10

Pulseammo · 8 Oct 2016 at 13:51

Hello all, I'm trying to sort a problem with wifi dropping constantly on a DW1501 card in a laptop, it seems that Dell hasn't released decent Windows 10 drivers for this card and a lot of folks have problems with it, so I've decided to ditch it.

Currently I'm looking at an Intel 7260HMW AC, however looking around on an auction site it seems the cheapest prices (by quite a bit) are cards from China, what's the catch here, are these cards just fake with intel branding stamped on them?

Does anyone have any recommendations for a half mini wifi card that is stable on windows 10? Looking for something easy to source in the UK, cheap (£15 or so) and supports dual band (5ghz N, AC not required) and bluetooth.

Thanks!

Uhtred · 8 Oct 2016 at 14:05

I picked up a 7260 for just under £20 in the UK about a year ago for an hp laptop and its been great. Some laptops are fussy about what cards you put in them but there are a few tricks to get around it usually.

Pulseammo · 8 Oct 2016 at 17:36

Was that the Single Band 2.4ghz N variant of the 7260? I can find one of those inside my budget, I'd kind of liked to have had the 5ghz band to cover my bases but honestly I think my main issue is that the current card just doesn't want to play ball in the first place, all my other 2.4ghz devices are pretty solid.

Can you elaborate on how laptops can be fussy? Will they just refuse to find the card even with drivers installed? I think I'll try to google anyone else with this specific model of laptop who has swapped out the wifi card if that's the case.

Thanks for the help so far.

Uhtred · 8 Oct 2016 at 20:13

It is dual band. At the time my neighbor had something which rendered 2.4 unusable so I moved everything to 5ghz.

When I was researching the replacement for my HP I remember reading about people having to cover pin 51 of the card to get it to work. Not sure if that included Dells.

PS I checked the place I got my adapter from have discontinued

Pulseammo · 8 Oct 2016 at 21:18

Cool thanks for those extra details, googling for the model of laptop and "7260 pin 51" doesn't seem to bring up anything so either no one has tried this combination or there are no problems with it, I did find lots of threads for other laptops though.

I think found a 7260 at a reasonable price so I'll roll the dice on it and see what happens.

Thanks for your help Uhtred.

Pulseammo · 12 Oct 2016 at 20:18

Just in case anyone comes across this thread in the future:

The laptop in question is a Latitude E5520 and I purchased the dual band version of the "7260HMW AN" Half Mini PCIe card.

The card installed fine without any hacks and my wifi issues seem to have been completely resolved. As it happens I think this laptop actually has a separate bluetooth module, but the bluetooth on the 7260 also works.

The wifi part of the card installed without internet access on Windows 10, but the bluetooth bit needed to find drivers after connecting.

Thanks again for your advice Uhtred.