Money Saving Tip....

Question

Got an Inspiron 8200, Dell wanted a small fortune to add a wireless card to the laptop. A bit of digging revealed the following. The Inspiron 8xxx has a MiniPCI slot, instead of spending the big Dell £££, I found a better/cheaper solution.

Get your hands on a DLink DWL-520+ card. It's a Desktop PCI card, but remove the metal can with a screwdriver, and low and behold there is a Mini-PCI card inside (inside a PCI-MiniPCI adapter). Slot the MiniPCI into your Dell (keep the adapter in case you want to turn it back into a full PCI card).

It works perfectly for me, has better signal strength than my neihbours Inspiron 8200, and the drivers work OK under Linux as well as Win operatings systems. There are also Micro WHQL signed drivers available from Dlink.com

Best of all, you can pick these cards up dirt cheap. The only downside, is that it's 802.11b (not g), but for me that's not a problem, and the power consumption is lower on a b card anyhow.... A added bonus, is that it's a dual purpose card, as it can be converted between PCI and MiniPCI at will (assuming you kept the adapter board)

Hope this helps someone save a few ££££

mattcowger · Answer

I've detailed this process here: http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_network&message.id=17905

johnallg · Answer

First reported January 2, 2003.  Also the Linksys cards and routers use them.  There are a lot of posts covering this fact and procedure over the last year and a quarter found by searching.  My experience with the DWL-520+ is it overheats and shuts off after a short time in my 4000.  You also have to make sure the card you get has the U.FL connector on the card to make it easy to plug the internal antenna onto the card.  Newark and Digi-Key sell the U.FL connectors if the card is without (the antenna lead from the PCI card is soldered onto the mini-PCI on newer models of these cards).

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Money Saving Tip....

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