Replacing wireless card in C700 laptop

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Kaos Kid
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Replacing wireless card in C700 laptop

Post by Kaos Kid »

I've got an old C700 laptop that I upgraded with a t9300 and 3GB of memory and a 120GB SSD which makes it pretty snappy, but still has a wireless g wifi card (broadcomm). It appears to be fairly easy to replace the wifi card, but will the compaq bios allow that? I had read that some HP bioses have a whitelist for approved devices and will not boot if unapproved hardware is detected. I have the latest bios (f35 Insyde bios). Do you have any suggestions for a wifi card replacement? Thanks!
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Re: Replacing wireless card in C700 laptop

Post by KnightRid »

I've finally figured out that C700 is locked to Compaq wireless cards after buying 2 Dell wifi cards from eBay
from http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads ... 042/page-5

I would go with an external/usb wifi card to upgrade.
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Kaos Kid
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Re: Replacing wireless card in C700 laptop

Post by Kaos Kid »

I saw that same thread when I googled it. That is why I think this one may work

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-BCM94321MC- ... :rk:1:pf:0

Here is a screenie of the drivers (Vista, but works with Win7) full details page for the G card that is in the laptop now, I am hoping that since they are both HP based and these cards both have the Broadcomm 4321 chip that it would work in the Presario.
Driver_-_Compaq_Presario_C717NR_Notebook_PC_HP®_Customer_Support_-_2018-10-11_16.55.38.jpg
Driver_-_Compaq_Presario_C717NR_Notebook_PC_HP®_Customer_Support_-_2018-10-11_16.55.38.jpg (38.27 KiB) Viewed 6481 times
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Kaos Kid
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Re: Replacing wireless card in C700 laptop

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I am trying to get this laptop working the best so my daughter can take it to school with her, it is smaller than her home laptop and all she really needs is something that she can take notes with and have it easier to look things up in class than a small phone or tablet and can be considered a throwaway if something happens to it. It was given to me, I have about $50 in it with the cpu, memory, and an SSD so I figure another $15 investment for an N wifi card for something she can use for at least another year is worth a try.
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Re: Replacing wireless card in C700 laptop

Post by KnightRid »

It never hurts to try especially when it is only $15 !!!
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Re: Replacing wireless card in C700 laptop

Post by Apoptosis »

Ever get it out? I got a pile of old Wifi cards here that you can try... Intel, Killer, Broadcom
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Kaos Kid
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Re: Replacing wireless card in C700 laptop

Post by Kaos Kid »

That would be great if you had something that would work. I had put this aside again because I got a little disheartened with it (mem compatibility issues, SSD issues waking up from sleep or hibernate). If you have some wireless n cards you can let me try that would be great. Also, this laptop uses PC2-5300 memory (max 3GB) but since with the T9300 it shows 800fsb mem I tried getting 3GB of Samsung PC2-6400 and it wouldn't boot so I don't know if it is because of the speed or the brand. It currently uses Hynix without problems, so if you have either a Hynix 1GB of PC2-5300 or Hynix 3GB (2GB + 1GB) of PC2-6400 (or both) that I could test that would be awesome but if you don't that's fine, I doubt you have that old of tech sitting around. Let me know through PM when I can hook up to get those wifi cards. Thanks!
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