An Intel 4965AGN (background) and Intel 6200 with full-size brackets attached (foreground)Number of antenna connections: Most laptops will have at least two wireless connectors to improve the signal by using spatial separation of the antennas inside the laptop. Some laptops will have three. Similarly, some wireless cards will have two antenna connectors, and some have three.Ideally, you’ll probably want to get a WiFi card with three connectors if you have three antennas, but if you are missing either a connector on the card, or a 3rd antenna wire on the laptop, you can still connect up what you have and it will work. The LED-screen version of the Dell XPS M1330 in the top picture actually shipped with only two antennas available for the installed three-connecter 4965 card.Bluetooth/WiMax support: Some newer cards also come with Bluetooth and/or WiMax support. For the purposes of this article, we’re just interested in plain WiFi cards.

See the release notes in the readme.txt file for installation instructions, supported hardware, what's new, bug fixes, and known issues. This download installs base drivers, Intel® PROSet for Windows Device Manager., and Intel® PROSet Adapter Configuration Utility for Intel® Network Adapters with Windows 10.

If you don’t need Bluetooth or WiMax support, it’s probably better to get a card without these features, since there are some reports that the different modes can conflict with each other when a number of them are enabled simultaneously. Buying a new card – some contendersHere are some ideas for replacement cards, just sticking with the Intel range as an example:. Intel 5100/5300 – Dual/Triple antenna successors to the 4965. Probably not really worth the effort. Comes in half-height and full-height versions. Intel 6200/6300 – A good compromise between performance and compatibility, these half-height cards from 2011 come in either the dual-stream, dual-antenna 6200 “Advanced-N” version, or the triple-stream, triple-antenna 6300 “Ultimate-N” version. Intel 6205 – Appears to be a newer revision of the 6200. The challenge 2003 full movie vodlocker.

Intel 6235 – Similar to the 6205, but with Bluetooth. A number of people report have difficulties with this card. Intel 7000 series (e.g. 7260) – These are Intel’s newest series of cards that feature support for the newest.11ac wireless standard. They don’t have driver support for Windows Vista or XP.Where to buyIt going to be easier in most cases to buy something like this online. EBay does have a large selection of WiFi card sellers, however, if you’re not certain about the source, it’s probably better to buy off Amazon or an independent online retailer.Check that your seller has a good no-quibbles return policy, since there is a chance you might find that your new card is incompatible with your system for some reason.Note that if you do decide to buy off eBay, there’s the usual risk of getting a fake –.

Genuine fake or Fake fake?Some sellers, in what can only be considered as a brazen attempt at avoiding a ban, actually include a declaration of fakeness somewhere in the ad, like in the listing above! Installing your cardPhysically installing the card is usually straightforward – just be careful with the little antenna connectors.The laptop should be fully powered off and unplugged. It’s not usually necessary to remove the battery, but you can if you feel more comfortable with it. You will probably need a small Philips-style screwdriver to open the WiFi compartment.If you need to use a half-height to full height adapter, attach that to the new card.You can usually prise off the antenna leads on the old card with fingernails, and clip them on to the new card with fingers and thumbs.

They minimally snap into place when correctly connected.Don’t forget to download the drivers (but don’t install yet) for your new card before removing the old one!After the new card is in place, restart your laptop, wait until it recognizes (or not.) the card, then install the new drivers regardless. Good question you could try to take apart the screen to see if you can replace the cable on the internal antenna (or the antenna itself), but it’s probably going to be difficult and may not be possible with some laptops.An alternative is to just ignore it.

If there are 3 cables, you can get by just using 2 without suffering that much – you might just miss out on the top connection speeds at short distances.But an easier solution could be a short pigtail cable to extend it. What you’re looking for is a u.fl male to female pigtail, something like or similar. While this post may be about upgrading from a 4965AGN, WiFi Link 5100 or 5300 to something better its worth mentioning that these models are pretty cheap and good for older laptops seeking to connect to the 5Ghz Band (5100/5300).

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This portal deals with the installation and configuration of WiFi devices. Device installation is essentially a two-part process: 1) installing the driver (also called a module) and 2) setting up your WiFi interface.

Contents

1. Install Driver

Introduction

A WiFi device operates on an electronic chip called a 'chipset'. We can find the same chipset in several different devices. Consequently, the driver/module for one chipset will work for all wireless devices using that chipset.

Free software based systems such as Debian depend on the cooperation between manufacturers and developers to produce and maintain quality drivers and firmware. Drivers and firmware are what determine if, and how well, your hardware works.

Debian's Social Contract mandates the freeing of the distribution. In practice this means manufacturers are required to cooperate by releasing specifications and free drivers that can be worked on by the community. Newer versions of Debian (6+) do not include non-free drivers or firmware.

Non-free drivers and firmware are produced by entities refusing or unable to cooperate with the free software community. With non-free drivers and firmware support is often unavailable or severely constrained. For instance features are often left out, bugs go unfixed, and what support does exist from the manufacture may be fleeting.

By encouraging good social practices the community is able to support end-users. Complex installation procedures are no longer required and support may continue long after a product has been discontinued.

Availability of compatible WiFi chipsets

Currently there are only a few modern wifi chipsets readily available that work with free software systems. For USB wifi devices this list includes the Realtek RTL8187B chipset (802.11G) and the Atheros AR9170 chipset (802.11N). For Mini PCIe all cards with an Atheros chipset are supported.

Wifi has always been a problem for free software users. USB Wifi cards are becoming less free. With the older 802.11G standard many USB wifi cards had free drivers and did not require non-free firmware. With 802.11N there is only one chipset on the market, from Atheros, which is completely free.

One company which specializes in free software and sells 802.11N USB wifi cards, ThinkPenguin.com, has indicated the availability of free software supported 802.11N USB wifi cards is disappearing. Solving this problem will require more demand than currently exists. Next time you purchase a piece of hardware ask yourself if it is free software compatible.

Simple guide

The following devices have been tested and are confirmed to work with FOSS software only with the latest Debian:

Devices that might work

According to some users/reviewers these devices might possibly work with the latest Debian. They need to be confirmed and need specific guides. Furthermore, they might only work with proprietary firmware (FOSS-column).
In the Count reviewers (date/Debian version)-column the Debian version used by the reviewer, the name of the Debian-based distribution, and/or the year of the review is given in brackets. [PP] stands for a review that says it's working Plug&Play, [nPP] for one explicitly saying that it's not working Plug&Play or describing a guide that's not Plug&Play. [B] stands for a review that says it's buggy. The number curly brackets show how many users rated a review helpful / voted it up. Additional types could get added to the type-column. (with antenna) refers antennas attached by wire.

Prerequisites

A WiFi interface is an Ethernet interface which also provides WiFi-specific configuration parameters. These parameters are controlled using the iwconfig program.

www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch05 - Debian Reference Chapter 5 - Network setup

• For basic command line usage:

  1. iw tool for manipulating Linux Wireless stack via cfg80211/nl80211.

  2. wireless-tools, tools for manipulating Linux Wireless Extensions (installed by default on Desktop & Laptop installations)

• For GUI systems:

  1. NetworkManager A wired and wireless manager, installed by default on Gnome-Desktop & Laptop installation, configuration access via nm-applet

  2. wicd, a wired and wireless manager, is recommended for other environments without GNOME dependencies such as XFCE, Fluxbox, Openbox, Enlightenment.

• Other related packages:

  • wpasupplicant, client support for WPA and WPA2 networks

  • rfkill, simple tool used to enable and disable wireless networking devices, typically WLAN, Bluetooth and mobile broadband.

  • iwd, aims to potentially replace wpasupplicant in the future by utilizing modern Linux features via nl80211

If these are missing, you can install these via:

… and similar

Use lsusb to see information about which USB WiFi adapter is connected

Use lspci to see information about which PCI cards is connected

Install Driver

Before you buy, verify your intended device is supported by an available Linux driver. A good indication of support is Tux being displayed on the product's packaging. Better, perhaps, is using a web search engine to find reports from others using it with Debian stable attesting to its performance and usability.

This section presents general lists of WiFi devices (grouped by host interface) and sorted by driver/module name. Each list has two main elements: the module name and the chipset(s) it supports. Known unsupported chipsets are at the end of each list.

If available, a help page link will provide you with further information. We recommend you read the associated help page, as some devices may require to be supplied with microcode (aka 'firmware') before they can be used.

For an indication of support with a specific device, see the Wireless Adapter Chipset Directory.

PCI Devices

See HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI for more information

Legend :
= OK ; Unsupported(No Driver) ; = Error (Couldn't get it working); [?] Unknown, Not Test ; [-] Not-applicable
= Configuration Required; = Only works with a proprietary driver and/or firmware

• An extended list of PCI-IDs to kernel-module mapping is available at DeviceDatabase/PCI.

USB Devices

See HowToIdentifyADevice/USB for more information

• An extended list of USB-IDs to kernel-module mapping is available at DeviceDatabase/USB.

PC Card (PCMCIA) Devices

See HowToIdentifyADevice/PC_Card for more information

Routers

• http://hostap.epitest.fi/, hostapd is a daemon to turn a computer into an access point.

Configure Interface

Your wireless network interface can be configured using a connection manager or Debian's network interface configuration file (/etc/network/interfaces).

Graphical Network Connection Tools:

Network Manager for GNOME (network-manager) or wicd

For more information, please see WiFi/HowToUse.

Troubleshooting

My Wifi card doesn't work/is not detected: many Wifi network interfaces require proprietary Firmware to function. For these cards to work, you will need to either install Debian from the unofficial CD image with included non-free firmwares, or edit your package sources to include the non-free section, and install the firmware-linux-nonfree package (and/or other firmware-* packages).

Resources

• WiFi/HowToUse

• WiFi/AdHoc

• WifiRadar

• Network

External Links

• Wi-Fi - Wikipedia

• Comparison of open-source wireless drivers - Wikipedia

• http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/#howto The Linux Wireless Compatibility and HowTo (2007)

• Linux home networking wiki page about wireless networking.

• http://linux-wless.passys.nl/ Wireless Adapter Chipset Directory

CategoryPortal CategoryNetwork CategoryWifi CategoryHardware

1. Prism3 SSF devices require non-free firmware from userspace. (12)

2. For WPA support on Hermes-based devices, non-free firmware from userspace is required. Non-WPA usage and Prism chipsets (except Prism 3 SSF) use firmware stored in flash memory. (34)

3. Binary-only and GPL firmware available. (5)

4. Binary-only and BSD/MIT firmware available. (6)

5. For devices without flash memory (eg. Intel WPC2011BWW), non-free firmware from userspace is required. (7)