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Replacing wireless card in XPS 8500
Hello,
I have a Dell XPS 8500. I've upgraded it to Windows 10, but since doing so I've noticed that my wireless bandwidth has plummeted. I've found a post on these forums from a user with an Inspiron laptop using the same wireless card who experienced the same problem. That said, I'd like to replace the wireless card.
Is the wireless capability on a card, or is it integrated into the motherboard? Also, is Bluetooth handled by the same card? I'm deciding which card to buy and I want to make sure I retain Bluetooth capabilities.
Luke
ieee488
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August 19th, 2015 17:00
Did you upgrade the drivers to ones for Windows 10 if there any?
The information about the wireless card would be in the owner's manual.
RoHe
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August 19th, 2015 19:00
Note that Dell says the XPS 8500 has not been tested for Win 10, but that doesn't mean it doesn't run, but there could be driver issues, as you've seen.
The WiFi card is an add-in that goes in a half Mini-Card slot for a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) and Bluetooth combo card.
You can try this:
Go to Device Manager and click the listing for your WiFi card. Click Advanced tab and copy down all the current settings. Then change those settings one at a time until you find the right combination to maximize performance.
When I installed Win 10 on my Inspiron (probably not the same WiFi card, since it's older than the XPS 8500, the default driver settings on the Advanced tab were TERRIBLE.
My link connection speed was only ~11 Mbps (Click the link with your SSID name on the Network Settings page in Win 10 to see link connection speed).
After fiddling with those settings, I got the link connection speed stable at ~300 Mbps which is the max speed for my router on 2.4 GHz.
Can't tell you which -if any- settings to change, because I don't know your WiFi card or which -if any- settings might not be optimal.
If something goes wrong when you change settings, eg you make things worse or lose all WiFi, you can restore the settings to their defaults, assuming you copied them down ahead of time. :emotion-5:
XPS 8500 service manual is here.
QuesterLEJ
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August 19th, 2015 19:00
I did. As a matter of fact, I did a clean install just to make sure vestiges of the Windows 7/8 drivers weren't messing anything up.
As for the manual, I can't find it. I received the system as a replacement for an older one that developed serious, irreparable problems, and not much came with it.
Luke
RoHe
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August 19th, 2015 20:00
BTW: How did you update all your XPS 8500 drivers for Win 10, since Dell isn't offering any..??
What version of Windows was on this system before you upgraded to Win 10? It appears that Dell offered either Dell 1703 WiFi or Dell 1704 WiFi or Intel 2230 WiFi card with systems that originally came with Win 7 because there are drivers listed for those 3 cards under Win 7. The only WiFi driver offered for Win 8.1 is for the 1703 card.
So you really need to know which WiFi card you have. If it's the 2230, that is actually the card I have in my Inspiron and at least the version of the driver that got installed along with the Win 10 upgrade was not optimized at all.