Question Dell m4700: what wwan card is compatible and will give me modern day 4G LTE speeds

[Richez]

Well i have a run of the mill dell m4700 and it has the sim slot, antenna connections and it will take a sim card. Im kind of stumped at the lack of info out there for how to get wwan and have it work well with decent speeds. Its a pain to use a hotspot and i mainly use the laptop when im away from home or wifi anyways. Also im using t-mobile/sprint so im guessing an unlocked card would be best

 

[Lutfij]

You could look into this;
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-Wireless-DW5804-LTE-3G-01YH12/dp/B0156I9CSQ
but your mileage can and will vary, considering that Dell's and HP's had a white list for networking gear meaning that a particular set of devices will work, devices that are listed in the service manual. From what I can gather the laptop you own had 3G WWAN card, not a 4G card listed in their service manual.

Edit, I rechecked the service manual, shows that the M6700 has a 4G LTE module.
Found this after that search;
https://www.newegg.com/p/0EP-004M-001W4
which also has your laptop listed in supported devices.

 

[Richez]

You could look into this;
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-Wireless-DW5804-LTE-3G-01YH12/dp/B0156I9CSQ
but your mileage can and will vary, considering that Dell's and HP's had a white list for networking gear meaning that a particular set of devices will work, devices that are listed in the service manual. From what I can gather the laptop you own had 3G WWAN card, not a 4G card listed in their service manual.

Edit, I rechecked the service manual, shows that the M6700 has a 4G LTE module.
Found this after that search;
https://www.newegg.com/p/0EP-004M-001W4
which also has your laptop listed in supported devices.

Well i ordered the card so wish me luck i mainly had trouble finding any devices that showed they were compatible and instead just got large lists of random wwan cards. So i will keep you updated and let you know if the card works im sure it will though. Thanks!

 

[Richez]

Also what i find odd is that the wwan slot is also msata but isnt considered to be a mini pcie slot as far as ik but i assume it would be pcie since it has to handle this type of signal

 

[Richez]

Also looked into it a bit deeper turns out that card on newegg is listed wrong it doesnt support 4g lte only 3g so i cancelled the order and instead found a novatel e371 which is the card from amazon that you listed

 

[hang-the-9]

Also what i find odd is that the wwan slot is also msata but isnt considered to be a mini pcie slot as far as ik but i assume it would be pcie since it has to handle this type of signal

mSATA is not mini PCIe, mSATA is exactly what is sounds like a (m)ini SATA port just like the SATA cable a storage drive uses.

 

[Richez]

mSATA is not mini PCIe, mSATA is exactly what is sounds like a (m)ini SATA port just like the SATA cable a storage drive uses.

The slot in the laptop is labeled as wwan/msata

 

[hang-the-9]

The slot in the laptop is labeled as wwan/msata

Correct, your post about it said something about you thinking it would be PCIe. mSATA and miniPCIe look a bit similar but are not the same interface type.

 

[Richez]

Ok i installed the card with its proper software and drivers windows 10 can now properly identify the card as well as the software. Although when i installed the sim card the software can identify the carrier but there is absolutely no network signal even with its included diagnostic tool. The software im using is the older novatel software. Should i use different software?

 

[Richez]

Ok i installed the card with its proper software and drivers windows 10 can now properly identify the card as well as the software. Although when i installed the sim card the software can identify the carrier but there is absolutely no network signal even with its included diagnostic tool. The software im using is the older novatel software. Should i use different software?

Also if the card is completely incompatable with tmobile (just found out it was meant for AT&T) ahh well ill just get a different card it was only 15 bucks

 

[Richez]

anyone know why i have zero network signal with a functioning sim?