Question Upgrading Wifi card

[Bessertec]

I want to upgrade the wireless adapter for my Lenovo AIO B50-30. It only detects 2.4ghz networks and I want to upgrade so it can detect 5ghz networks

It comes with a Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0 combo adapter in PCIe mini card slot. (See image).

Since this is my first time upgrading this component, I will appreciate any considerations regarding selection of the new card, drivers, etc.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Lutfij]

You can drop this Lenovo RTL8821AE (P/N: 04X6026);
https://www.ebay.com/itm/275963991097
in place of that WiFi adapter. Just make sure you're on the latest BIOS version for your AIO's motherboard before the adapter swap.

 

[bill001g]

I will defer to the above post since it appears he did some research.

From what I can tell this will be a upgrade that goes from what is now called wifi4 to wifi5. The new also runs on 5ghz.

It is a upgrade but is also extremely outdated. Unfortunately it is likely the best it will ever be. The newer types of wifi card are no longer manufactured for that type of connection. Everything now users m.2 which has different motherboard connectors and antenna connectors.

The other things I noticed when I looked up the specs is it says that machine runs windows 8.1

I will assume you have upgraded your machine to windows 10. The card listed above will have drivers for windows 10 but not likely for windows 8.1

 

[Bessertec]

Thanks for your replies!

You can drop this Lenovo RTL8821AE (P/N: 04X6026);
https://www.ebay.com/itm/275963991097
in place of that WiFi adapter. Just make sure you're on the latest BIOS version for your AIO's motherboard before the adapter swap.

I will defer to the above post since it appears he did some research.

From what I can tell this will be a upgrade that goes from what is now called wifi4 to wifi5. The new also runs on 5ghz.

It is a upgrade but is also extremely outdated. Unfortunately it is likely the best it will ever be. The newer types of wifi card are no longer manufactured for that type of connection. Everything now users m.2 which has different motherboard connectors and antenna connectors.

The other things I noticed when I looked up the specs is it says that machine runs windows 8.1

I will assume you have upgraded your machine to windows 10. The card listed above will have drivers for windows 10 but not likely for windows 8.1

Yes, im running Win10 22H2.

Since I live in Mexico the easiest way to buy a replacement card is through amazon.

I have found this, do you think I might work? https://a.co/d/fwBjhvb

 

[Lutfij]

I would've suggested that very card as I had it on my Z97 Stinger motherboard. I'm not familiar with Lenovo's BIOS since Dell and HP have/had a whitelist, meaning you can't just drop in any WiFi adapter even though the slot matches up to the card. It needs to be vetted by the BIOS(hence a whitelist) and then you'll be able to boot to OS GUI.

I looked over the www and didn't find any mention of people swapping their adapter's out for the Intel 7260HMW adapter.

Give it a go, if it works, it works. If it doesn't, you can return it. I just mentioned what would work with your prebuilt out of the box. As @bill001g has stated, you're on a dated platform and I doubt you have access to an NGFF/M.2 slot that can accommodate an NGW variant of the 7260 adapter.

 

[Bessertec]

Do you think a USB WiFi adapter may be a convenient approach?

 

[logainofhades]

I do not think Lenovo locks down what you can upgrade to, for wifi card, as long as it is slot compatible. My old Lenovo Legion laptop wasn't limited anyway.

 

[bill001g]

Do you think a USB WiFi adapter may be a convenient approach?

USB will give you a somewhat larger selection. Although some of the really fast wifi device want USB3 ports very few really run faster than a USB2 port in real world installs.
You still can not run say wifi7 because your machine can not run window 11.

You have to be a bit careful about USB devices. There is a trade off. Small size makes them more portable and sometime uses less battery. The problem is this also makes them have smaller antenna and using less battery means they do not run at full transmit power so the range will be less. If this was a desktop I would recommend the USB devices that have a long cable and are designed to sit on top of a desktop case. These tend to be fairly large devices but that means they also have larger antenna and tend to transmit at the full legal power limit. They are a pain to carry around because of the size and cable.

Only you can decide but I would avoid those tiny device that are almost completely hidden inside the USB slot.