Question Does the BE200 WiFi 7 adapter ugrade need new antennas ?

[erik343]

I upgraded from an Intel AX203 to an Intel BE200 WiFi adapter in my Lenovo ThinkBook 16 G7 IML laptop.

Do the internal antenna black and gray coax connectors order matter, can you hook up MAIN and AUX backwards?

Do I need new internal antennas for upgrading from WiFi 6 to 7?

Thanks!

 

[Lutfij]

They are usually placed at the top edge of the laptop's bezel. You should follow the sequencing of the cables. 1 = black and 2 = white, usually. If you got the same form factor wireless adapter, then you don't need to worry about changing out antenna's.

 

[bill001g]

Are you actually willing to try to disablement a laptop far enough to even see if you can replace antenna. Most antenna are behind the screen and the screens on many laptops you must heat to disassemble because they are so thin.

I don' think it matters which cable you use if you are using your current antenna.

I have not looked into discussions of antenna designed for things like wifi6e or wifi7. The key difference is the support of the 6ghz radio band. With 2.4 and 5ghz it is almost a exact double so the length of the optimum antenna is almost the same. With 6ghz added the optimum antenna might be slightly different in length. Hard to say this gets into very complex math very quickly and the difference in length many times are only millimeters difference.

From what I have seen most new devices being sold for 6ghz use do not have special antenna so it is highly likely the old antenna are good enough.

 

[erik343]

Ok thanks!

My BE200 Intel adapter does 2x2.
Does that mean each antenna is one of the channels of the 2x2?

 

[bill001g]

That is what it means. What I never really understood was why there were 2 different color wires. The small number of machine I took apart the antenna on the other end was the same. Many years ago before they did mimo you used to have a antenna for bluetooth but now days wifi and bluetooth co exist on the same antenna but I think they only run bluetooth on a single antenna.

From what I can tell you just hook both cables up and everything works.

 

[erik343]

Are most internal laptop WiFi antennas omnidirectional? Or directional?

 

[bill001g]

My guess would be they are omni but because they are many times mounted behind the screen and the screen blocks lots of wifi signal they might behave as a directional antenna. More because the signal is being blocked in certain directions.

A directional antenna tends to manufactured in a different physical pattern which generally increases the size. Simple omni antenna tend to be just pieces of wire cut to a very specific length and then wrapped in a type of plastic that is transparent to the radio frequencies being used. Although it likely is possible to get directional antenna on a laptop many times laptops will trade performance features for portability concerns.

After talking to some rf engineers I realize I know nothing about this topic. They make their whole career designing just antennas. So much details like how different types of plastic affect radio signals and even differnce based on how hot it is outside.

 

[erik343]

Tech support gave me a photo of my antennas. The main and aux antennas are different antennas and shapes. I am going to plug them into the correct ports. I believe it’s a WiFi 6E antenna because the laptop ships with either WiFi 6 or 6E wireless adapters.

https://store.emprgroup.co.nz/p-588319-5a30s36097-antenna-w-21kk-ma.aspx

For BE200 Intel does the black wire go into the black arrow port. And the gray wire into the white arrow port?

Intel BE200NGW M.2 NGFF WiFi 7 WiFi Card Tri Band 802.11be BT5.4 Netwo

The Intel BE200 Wi-Fi 7 network card features a 2*2 antenna configuration, supporting 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz frequency bands, and boasts a maximum network speed of 5.8Gbps. The biggest technical highlight of WiFi 7 is the support for 320MHz channel, which is a channel that has never been used by...

www.google.com

Thanks

 

[bill001g]

My guess would be that is your best first option to try. When you take it apart look at the card that is in the machine. See if it has similar color or markings.

Even after you asked this I have not found any clear indication of what "main" and "aux" means on modern wifi cards.

As long as your laptop is not a huge pain to take apart maybe try both options and see if you can find any difference.

 

[bill001g]

Something I noticed when I looked up your old/current card.

The card is what is called CNVIO. This need special support in the motherboard. The wifi7 card you list is PCIE.

I think but am not 100% sure is you can place a PCIE card into a cnvio slot. I know you can not place a cnvio card into a motherboard that does not have the support.