OtterFox Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 How feasible is it to increase the gain of the wifi on my laptop? A HP 6530b, with intel 5100 wifi, running fedora 10. I was thinking a physical mod to the antenna but a software amp would be cool too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssmithisme Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 I dont know of any software that can do that. I dont think its possible to take a laptop and put some special software to make wireless signal farther unless it like.... supercharged your wireless card or something. My original thought was that you could take a bowl, aluminum foil. and some other cool stuff and make a dish to plug your wireless into. xD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 Get a better antenna and mod a SMA connector to the laptop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vector Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 your laptops internal mini pci or mini pci express wireless card will typically have 2 antenna wires connected to it depending on what type of card it is 802.11a/b/g cards will have 3 usually white, black, and grey in color. now anyone who has ever taken a laptop apart will know that those thin antenna cables will typically run up through the back of the monitor and have a thin flat metalic adhesive patch at the end that sticks to the inside of the lid to your laptop. this is so that when your lid is open youll get better gain. theoreticallly that is. most laptop lids are made of metal usually aluminum so that it will auto matically ground you each time you go to open your laptop. however this can cause weird singal noise in certain conditions. now modding or soldering anything directly to your laptops internal wireless card is a big no no, i wouldnt recommend it. what ive done on some of my old laptops is taken those internal antenna cables from another out of commission laptop and used them as external antenna cables for my internal wireless card. this way you can drill two very tiny holes in the panel that covers your laptops wireless cardand run them through there to whatever device you want. then you have the option to solder them to any type of external high gain antenna connector. this way you dont risk permanently damaging your wireless card or other nearby internal components with a big permanent rp-sma connector or whatever. and when youre done using your external connection you can simply unplug those small wires from your laptops wireless card and plug in the regular ones. right back to how it was. ill try to find the pics of the laptops i did this too so you can see what i mean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xarf Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 You're going to want to get an additional antenna for your laptop, a USB stick with optional changable antenna is your best bet, because you can then additionally add a larger and larger antenna as and if you require it. Something like this: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OtterFox Posted December 28, 2008 Author Share Posted December 28, 2008 @Xarf: I'd rather use my internal WiFi card as I've finally got it working. So how many wires should a ABGN WiFi card have coming off it? I seem to remember only 2 when I opened my laptop up. I think I can find some of the little cables that connect to my WiFi card. Could connect...Little cables->longer wire->SMA connector->antenna or do I need some sort of insulation on the cable or would it be better to go little cables->SMA connector->SMA-SMA cable->antenna? I kinda wana do this as cheaply as possible, mainly for fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l3db3tt3r Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 As few connectors as possible, as little soldering as possible. limit db line loss. first try a better ant. if that doesn't do it for you, try getting a small amp that will run off 5v you can pull from a USB. I've modded a couple notebooks to have external SMA's for practical purposes. Wasn't too big of a loss, mostly depended on the antenna array in use. and/or the quality of the amp. Amp's are expensive and fragile. so fair warning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vector Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 @Xarf: I'd rather use my internal WiFi card as I've finally got it working. So how many wires should a ABGN WiFi card have coming off it? I seem to remember only 2 when I opened my laptop up. I think I can find some of the little cables that connect to my WiFi card. Could connect...Little cables->longer wire->SMA connector->antenna or do I need some sort of insulation on the cable or would it be better to go little cables->SMA connector->SMA-SMA cable->antenna? I kinda wana do this as cheaply as possible, mainly for fun. the antenna cables should be long enough, the ones i pulled out of my smashed mini note 2133 were about 12" long so if you pulled some out of a larger laptop they might be even longer. most a/b/g/n cards ive seen have usually have 3 cables but youre probably only going to be using the B/G/N band mostly anyways so it probably wont matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OtterFox Posted December 29, 2008 Author Share Posted December 29, 2008 Can u make antennas yourself? I'd rather make my own before buying a broken laptop off a auction site just to pull apart or a normal retail airal. Also what are the little clip on hat type connectors that connect the airal wires to the card called? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.