are e-bay Intel 5300 cards safe?

I'm looking to upgrade my E6400 to an intel 5300 card. Do I have to buy a card that is programed specificly for a Dell computer, or will any one work?
In shopping around I see that some say Dell only, or HP/IBM only.

How about the ones on e-bay, have users had good luck with those? For some reason I'm wary of those sellers. Of course I know I can buy one from Dell, but I'm trying to save a few bucks if I can.

Thanks

 

They fine as long as it's not an engineer sample.
Best thing to do is buy from a dealer with a good rep.
I'm using one from ebay which is a original retail one.
The one which say Dell or HP may well work in other branded units but geared toward the marked up brands and laptop units

 

I'm using ES full height one from Ebay and it works flawlessly in my vostro1400.
a little advice , don't buy the ones stated for HP/IBM only, it may not work for other brand.

 

I think it's the other way around; you can't use anything but the HP/IBM cards in an IBM/HP machine. I'm pretty sure I've tried using HP/IBM cards in Dells and had them work; Dell is pretty good with not being anal about these things.

But I guess if you want to be safe, you should get a vanilla card if you can...

 

Make sure it is a Dell OEM card (the card will probably have colored triangles instead of #'s, that's the way it is for Intel cards on the D620 and D630, I'm not sure about the E-series). Generic cards often cause the WiFi LED to flash during activity, which can be rather annoying.

 

Thank You for the correction

we already have solution for blinking led, Thx to nitehawke:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5337400&postcount=6

 

Still, if there's a Dell OEM card available for about the same price, I would save myself the hassle of editing the registry and get the OEM...

 

Agree, if you can get the same or similar price, the best to get is a Dell OEM card