Asus GL551 Wireless Network Card Upgrade

The Qualcomm Atheros wireless network card that comes with the GL551 sucks. 25 feet from the router the speed drops to 2-15 mbps. Go to another room and the speed is almost non existent.

Apparently it is easy to change but is there a better card that is compatible with this computer?

Thanks

 

What exact card does it have to begin with? There should be no problem replacing it - any mPCI express should do fine (apart from Dell or Lenovo branded cards)

 

Qualcomm Atheros AR9485WB-EG

 

Ahh. That explains everything. This Wi-Fi chip is famous or rather infamous, I should say.
There is no point dancing around it -you have to replace it.

If you are looking to upgrade to 802.11ac you might want to look at Intel 7260, otherwise Intel 6200 (or 6230 if you need Bluetooth integrated) should provide a decent and cheap upgrade.
Just ignore anything meant for Dell or Lenovo laptops (I can never remember if HP still uses whitelisting so it's better to ingnore that too).

Asus - as far as I know- does not use whitelisting so any card apart from those mentioned above will work fine.

 

Not being familiar with is model or Asus notebooks I did a several minute search of reviews,Asus ROG and Asus reseller sites that frequent NBR forums.

Low and behold there was no mention anywhere as to which wireless card was stock.

Asus doesn't name it also.

Why don't resellers list the make and model of all the hardware that's in each notebook?

There's many comments in reviews about the notebooks low price.

The AR9485WB-EG is a contributor toward the low stock price

 

Thanks
I just ordered the Intel 7260. I will report back if it works or not in a couple of days.

 

That did it. Speed is up to 40-50 mbps anywhere in my house.