D820 Guru needed - which mini-PCI wireless card is best?

Been poking around, but can't find a good answer.

For a D820, replacing the mini-PCI network card. Which one is best (and works)?
I thought all mini-PCI would be the same/work, but this might not be the case.
(all this "mini card", "half mini card" is driving me batty.)

The Dell 1505? The Intel 4965 ABGN? I want the best 802.11n performance.

The 1490 card I have now does 802.11a (basically "n" at 5ghz), but it limited to 54mbs. I would like to get up toward the 300mbs limit (I know actuals varies, but I have a newer 802.11n adapter on another laptop and it smokes.)

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

Just go for the Intel 5100 or 5300. That's pretty much the best thing available at the moment, and they're quite cheap to boot. Make sure you get a full-height version.

 

Thanks. I have the 5300 in other laptops, and agree it's the best out there.

Now, the bonus round question:

There are three antennas in the D820; black, white, and grey.
The current Dell 1490 has the black one attached to the black marked terminal, and the white one to the white marked terminal. The grey one is tuck off the side, unused.

The Intel 5300 has 3 antenna terminals - TR1, TR3, and TR2. No color markings.

So the $64,000 question is, which antenna wires go to which terminals?

I saw a picture online of a different laptop that shows black to TR1, white to TR2, and grey to TR3, but who knows if that is right.

Any advice?

 

White goes to TR1, grey goes to TR3, and black goes to TR2.











Ok, so I actually guessed on that, but allow me to explain: on the old Intel 2100 and 2200 cards we got on the D600 and D610, white was always "main" and black was always "aux". So with a two-antenna card, I'd assume that white continues to be main (TR1, first antenna), and black continues to be aux (TR2, second antenna). But now with the addition of the third antenna, they can't have like "aux2", so they just call it TR3, third antenna. That logic probably doesn't work so good, but I bet it doesn't make too much of a difference whatever way you do it

 

Thanks! You rock.

 

I'm partial to the Intel 4965AGN. More stable in my experience.
I had problems with the 5300 and the Apple Airport Extreme (dual band).