Latitude E4310 WWAN slot - will a WLAN card work?

The slot is labeled WWAN, but will a WLAN card work in it?

From what I've read, it should and that's just a 'dummy' label. I did read on some netbooks that the slot can be BIOS locked to only take a WWAN card though.

Has anyone tried this on an E4310 (or even an E6410, since they're so similar)?

 

My first consideration would be that the antenna cables (if present) next to the WWAN slot would be linked to antennae that are designed run at a frequency to WLAN. They might work, but not very well. Why don't you want to use the slot with the WLAN antenna cables?

John

 

The WLAN slot is half height PCIE, while the WWAN slot is full height. The Broadcom card I bought will only fit in the full height slot. Yes the WWAN has cables. I even went as far as using the cables from the half height to connect to the full height.

The full height card is not being detected in the bios though.

 

If the BIOS isn't seeing the WLAN card then either (i) the slot is not a full implementation of a mini PCIe slot or (ii) the card is defective. Perhaps it is the former. As far as I know. Dell doesn't lock the slots against usage with non-Dell cards.

John

 

The card I ordered didn't work. But it didn't work in a coworker's laptop either, so I think it might have been a dud.

I ordered another one to try, this time a DELL 1490 WLan MiniCard. It's still a Broadcom chipset, however I think it should work since it's a Dell card. The first one wasn't branded, except for by Broadcom.

 

I had a e4300 and still have a e6410 & e6510 and the WWAN slot supports a AVerMedia A312 Hybrid ATSC TV card, tested on all three and it worked fine.
Therefore i would assume that mini PCIe slot conforms to standards

btw for those that used the search function on AVerMedia and find this thread
the WWAN antenna works for my location with the atsc HD & digital TV
About 15 miles from the main tower farm, strong signal even though the antenna is not tuned for the correct frequencies, the metal of the display cover maybe helping some

 

Not sure if E4310 is same as E4300. I just did a test on my E4300.

I removed the Intel 6300 wifi from the WLAN slot and installed an Intel 4965AGN into the WWAN slot. Took the antenna from the WLAN slot and used them in the WWAN slot.

Bios shows wifi as not installed, but shows cellular as installed.
booted into windows 7 and it immediately found the card, installed drivers and connected to my wifi network at home.

Repeated the test with a dell 1505 abgn card and same results.

So at least on the E4300, the two cards I tested in the WWAN slot worked.

 

Thanks for testing! Appreciate it! Any reason you used the WLan antenna instead of the WWan antenna? Or were you just seeing if it would change how it was detected?

 

because my E4300 didn't have WWAN antennas installed.

 

Thanks, that makes sense!

Mine has antenna for both. Would it be okay to leave both the Intel 6300 and Dell 1490 cards in, since the replacement doesn't have N capability? Or will they conflict?