27 Posts
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1195
Upgrade Wireless card to get Bluetooth and Dual Band
Latitude E6430
Hi all,
I have an E6430 with an i7-3740QM processor that has a single-band WLAN card, a DW1540, and apparently no Bluetooth, either.
I was looking at an upgrade to an Intel 7260HMW Wireless card. Does anyone know if this will work and get me decent bluetooth to connect my audio to a UE Boom portable speaker, and ideally the benefits of a dual-band wifi?
Thanks in advance for sharing any experience you may have with this.
JOcean
9 Legend
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12.2K Posts
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February 3rd, 2023 11:00
I purchased that card and used it in my Latitude E5430, a very similar system to the E6430, and the card was both an easy install and works like a charm.
mrcoffe
27 Posts
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April 17th, 2023 17:00
OP here.
Turns out this E6430 has the built in bluetooth jammer, so the new modem card didn't get me bluetooth, just faster wifi. If you are in the same boat, put another bluetooth receiver near your E6430 and see if it shows up as an "unknown bluetooth device". If it does, it's the nearfield jammer, and disabling it is a break the module kind of thing.
mrcoffe
27 Posts
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May 17th, 2023 06:00
Hi Johnny1456,
If you install the bluetooth drivers for your new card, it WILL connect to the onboard jammer which will show up in your "connect a new bluetooth device", and it will turn on the jammer, so you can detect it with your phone's bluetooth connection menu. If it's there, you can't get bluetooth, PERIOD.
BUT....
If it DOESN'T have the jammer, you can do a work-around with a TP-link BLUETOOTH plug-in usb-dongle. Remove the old drivers for the DW1540 bluetooth transmitter and install the drivers for the TP link usb dongle. That will give you GOOD bluetooth connection on an E6430, which I know because I have a second E6430 that DOESN'T have the jammer, but won't work with the DW1540 bluetooth section of the modem.
Just do the above check before you buy the USB dongle, because if it has the built-in jammer, the dongle WON'T work. Wish someone had posted this before I spent hours figuring this all out.
Learn from my experience ...
If there IS a way to disable it in the registry (after all, it is being turned on my software), I gave up before I found it because I got the second E6430 bluetooth working with the dongle.
The jammer IS listed in the registry in a few places. If you do a search of the registry using the device id number that shows up in the bluetooth connection dialog, you'll find them. I was planning to start mucking around with them, but I'm not a registry guru and after I got the second E6430 bluetooth going, I dropped it.
I wondered if just deleting the registry references might do the trick, but never got around to trying it.
And if you go registry or hardware hunting and figure out how to disable the onboard jammer, please share it here!
I'm sure there are other folks out there who picked up these built-like-a-tank laptops cheap and put SSDs in them and maxed the RAM to get a nice machine for a couple hundred bucks who would like to know.
Saltgrass
3 Apprentice
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4.3K Posts
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February 3rd, 2023 13:00
I have an MPE-AX3000H on my Inspiron 1545. It is the same as an Intel AX200 except for the form factor.
Link Speed right now is 2402/2161 Mbps.
mrcoffe
27 Posts
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February 3rd, 2023 14:00
Yes, two leads. I removed a Verizon WWAN card so I have another EIDE slot and a couple other antenna leads, too.
mrcoffe
27 Posts
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February 3rd, 2023 14:00
Sounds promising. And Bluetooth works well, too?
Saltgrass
3 Apprentice
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4.3K Posts
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February 3rd, 2023 14:00
Bluetooth on the card is 5.2 and yes it works. I assume your system has two antenna leads? I have seen some systems that only have one.
Saltgrass
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4.3K Posts
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April 17th, 2023 17:00
I noticed in the Owner's manual the Bluetooth card is separate and can be removed.
mrcoffe
27 Posts
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April 26th, 2023 10:00
The regular bluetooth card can be removed, yes. My 6430 doesn't have a regular bluetooth card installed, so there is a different bluetooth jam module in there somewhere. The absence of bluetooth connectivity was one of the main reasons I changed the modem so start with.
Johny1456
5 Posts
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May 15th, 2023 05:00
I'm using dell latitude E6430, and card Wi-Fi Dell DW1540. I can connect to 5Ghz Wi-Fi, but not have Bluetooth.
mrcoffe
27 Posts
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May 15th, 2023 06:00
Does yours broadcast a jamming signal? I installed the bluetooth drivers for the modem card and it will show, but not connect to, nearby bluetooth devices --- EXCEPT the onboard jammer. I can tell there is a jammer in the computer because it shows up in the list of bluetooth devices on my iphone when it is nearby.
I'm looking for someone who has figured out how to disable the jammer, or at least knows where to look, so I can disable the jammer hardware.
I don't need the super-secure-against-snooping-corporate-spies-feature like the original owner apparently did.
Johny1456
5 Posts
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May 17th, 2023 01:00
When I install Bluetooth drive (card dell dw1540), it will show, but not connect. i don't know reason.
Today, i bought a card wireless intel AC 7260, after install card, win10 auto-recognize it. But, i don't know how to download driver for card 7260, so, my laptop not have Bluetooth.
Johny1456
5 Posts
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May 17th, 2023 07:00
Thank you very much. I have two SSD, and max ram 16gb. i think one of them has cause jam. I found Theard on intel.com for desktop, I think it is reason which make Bluetooth functional not work.
Johny1456
5 Posts
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May 17th, 2023 08:00
I just found the solution through YouTube, very easy. you can tap over pin 51 and/or pin 20 of wireless card. My laptop has Bluetooth, and i connected to my phone.
mrcoffe
27 Posts
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May 17th, 2023 09:00
I have 2 drives on both my E6430s. There is no cable in laptop to connect the bluetooth to the wireless card. It is something else.
Did you install all the bluetooth drivers and enable bluetooth services? There should be a bluetooth section in Device Manager. See images below.
Go into MSC.exe and enable all the bluetooth stuff. Reboot and see if you have bluetooth section in Device Manager. Use "show hidden" in drop down if not. If you have a jammer, it should show up in Device Manager and start transmitting when you enable Bluetooth LPN.
Do you have Dell control vault and fingerprint reader and smartcard slot?
Both of mine do, but only one has a jammer. But the one without the jammer still won't do bluetooth unless I use an outboard USB bluetooth dongle.
See my other thread for details about the jammer you may find helpful.
https://www.dell.com/community/Latitude/Bluetooth-Techies-Could-this-Bluetooth-audio-only-bypass-the/m-p/8351746#M48114