How reliable are internal laptop WiFi cards?
I’ve started noticing a interesting trend: the built-in WiFi in laptops seems to break quite often.
Whats worse, is the failure seems to be either intermittant, or causes hardware timeouts (otherwise seen as a “very slow laptop”).
Its difficult to diagnose a failure, when the WiFi might run OK for hours / days, and then stop working for hours/days… or if the laptop slows to a crawl for about 1 minute every hour.
I often end up going around in circles, until I decide to plug in a USB WiFi adapter… and then everything runs perfectly.
I once wondered why most laptop makers continue to build laptops with a removable WiFi cards (rather than integrate them into the motherboard). I thought it might be so they could offer a WiFi-less laptop for a lower price.
Now I’m starting to think it might be so that these unreliable components can be easily and cheaply replaced when a warranty claim is made.
Does it make a difference if it’s a Centrino machine versus and Intel CPU notebook with an Atheros or other WiFi cars?
Hi Cromley,
I haven’t really checked to see if the centrinos are more reliable than Atheros.
I’ll keep any eye out and see if there is any pattern to the failures.