Laptop wireless kitty card dance

For the first post of 2010, I’ll let a guest and dear friend Pilou talk about his misadventures in Computer Parts Land.

I own a Dell vostro 1000 laptop which ships with a Broadcom 4321 wireless network card. Unfortunately there is no Free driver for this chipset . It’s still possible to use ndiswrapper or a closed source driver but it’s way funnier to replace the evil closed source card with another one for which a free driver exists.

Of course another alternative would have been to patch b43 myself, and I just can’t remember why i didn’t choose the latter. Oh yes, I’m way too lazy.

Before throwing the Broadcom card to the trash, I needed to look for a new wireless PCI express mini card.

There is a famous place in Paris for this: the Montgallet Street near Montgallet subway station which has the highest concentration of computer part shops. I have a ride there and ask the chinese clerk in each shop if they sell any “wireless mini pci express card”.

Quickly I understood that asking for a “laptop internal wireless card” was more appropriate. I could find a used “laptop internal wireless card” in these stores only:

• Inforama http://www.rue-montgallet.com/boutiques/infos,inforama,6589
• LCDI http://www.rue-montgallet.com/boutiques/infos,lcdi,4
• notebookcom http://www.rue-montgallet.com/boutiques/infos,notebook-com,6701

The latest has about thirty wireless mini pci express card (and some mini pci cards). In most cases, the available brands of cards were: Intel, Broadcom and AzureWave. A sticker with the chipset id is on the top of the AzureWave card: I’ll be buying a AW-GE740 with an atheros chipset AR5BXB61 supported by ath5k free driver ath5k free driver . Now I can swap broadcom card with AzureWave card.

Requirements : a laptop, a wireless card, a screwdriver and a cat

• Install all requirements on a nice waterproof tablecloth (on the right side you can spot a yubikey ). If the cat displays a “I don’t care about you” face, you’re ok to continue to the next step.

• Remove the cover between screen and keyboard (self-explanatory photo )

• Remove the keyboard - be extra cautious with the keyboard cable more pics here

• Swap the cards

• Reassemble all. Boot the computer, let the cat appreciate your job.

Notes : A website referencing a lot of guide about repairing or upgrading wireless lan card : http://repair4laptop.org/wireless_lan_minipci.html

Dell documentation : http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/vos1000/en/sm_en/