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I was thinking the low brow option would be an old laptop, but that's not going to suffice for someone who wants to keep up with wireless protocols Many laptop
by ansible 11y ago
I was thinking the low brow option would be an old laptop, but that's not going to suffice for someone who wants to keep up with wireless protocols
Many laptops have mini-PCIe slots for the WLAN, so you could buy a new card and stick it in. Note that if you want to run 5GHz and the laptop didn't previously support it, you might need new antennas too.
The other caveat is that with some laptops the BIOS will allow only a particular WLAN card to be used. Which is annoying.
- mindslight 11y ago> some laptops the BIOS will allow only a particular WLAN card to be used Yeah, that's what I was referring to. The FUD of "unapproved changes" invalidating the FCC's approval for the antenna system leads the manufactures to create those restrictions. Since the end user making a modification well after the sale has nothing to do with the manufacturer, I call it FUD. (Of course the user isn't selling their modified device over state lines either, but I disgress). My experience is primarily limited to Thinkpads and a few crappy consumer models that I've inherited. But I figure the better designed laptops that can make it to "old" and not overheat with continuous usage are more likely to have those restriction lists.
- kw71 11y agoManufacturers like HP and Lenovo don't only have the FCC to worry about upsetting. They have to worry about regulators in every other country, too. So they want to make sure their type approvals can't be breached.