Studio 1737 WiFi Upgrade Question

Hi,

You would need to remove that original card to install the replacement.  Here is a link to the service manual for the Studio 1737, and the instructions for replacing a wireless card starts around page 35.  

Also, for the wires, refer to this:

The WLAN Mini-Card slot on the Studio™ 1737 system is located on the bottom of the system underneath the access panel. Only WLAN Mini-Cards work in this slot; other cards types do not. Three wires can be connected to the card, all of which may not be used. The black and white wires are used on most WLAN cards, while the gray wire is only be used on certain N or draft-n cards.

I hope this helps. 

Todd

Todd:

The way I read the manual it states that 1 half high mini card and 2 full height mini cards are supported. So, I have 1 half high 2.4 MHz mini card, Dell P/N 09FXW0 Rev A00, currently installed. It would appear from my research on the web that all 3 slots may be populated at the same time. I don't know how the laptop handles that but from web pics it apparently does. I figured out the 3 antenna wire hookup from reading the manual pages you referred to.

My big issue now is that the Dell MK933 WiFi card was not shipped (by Dell) with the attaching screw. How in heck do you get one VERY SMALL screw from Dell????? I went through all the screws I have accumulated from many years of fiddling with computer parts and none are as small as the one used in this application.

Thanks for your input and help.

Hi,

If you ordered a wireless Mini-Card with your computer, the card is already installed. Your computer supports three Mini-Card slots: l two Full Mini-Card slots – for WWAN, WPAN, UWB, Bluetooth one Half Mini-Card slot – for WLAN The types of Mini-Cards supported are: l Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)  Half Mini-Card l Ultra Wide Band (UWB) — Full Mini-Card l Mobile broadband or Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) — Full Mini-Card l Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) or Internal Card with Bluetooth® Wireless Technology —Full Mini-Card

You can populate all 3 slots at the same time but note they perform different functions.  The half-height mini cards for WLAN (ie normal wireless connection to a router, not WWAN such as the mobile broadband a phone utilizes). The Intel 3160 is a WLAN card, not a WWAN card.  

So you would need to physically remove the original WLAN card from the system, which should have a screw that you can utilize to install the new adapter, if required.  If it doesn't, then you would need to contact Dell support to request that screw be sent out.  (Or find one in a local hardware shop, which in the long run may be easier).  I would have no clue myself what screw would be needed.

Todd