Looking for an internal Bluetooth for Samsung R528

Hello!

I need an internal Bluetooth for wireless mouse in order to not occupy any of the USB ports on my laptop.
But I'm not sure whether a combo card would work in my Samsung R528 (NP-R528-DS04UA), as this model never was equipped with WiFi+BT combo cards, as far as I know.
At first I was planning to get an Intel 7260HMW. But then I read on the web that some people struggled to get BT working on it with their Samsung R528/R578/R780.
What could it be? Is it some kind of incompatibility with this newer Wireless cards? Or there are laptops that just unable to work with WiFi+BT combo cards? And is it even possible for me to get an internal Bluetooth that would actually work in my laptop?

My current wireless card is Atheros AR9285. All routers that I connect to from this card has a single stream Wireless-N (2.4GHz, 1x1, 150Mbps). So I don't really need anything faster than that at this point.

Do you guys know a decent 150Mbit+BT combo mPCIe card with stable Windows 7 drivers (boy, I read a lot about the drivers issues with Intel 7260)?

 

Decent cards don't really come in 150mbps flavor. That's because 150, sometimes called "802.11 n lite" was always a budget option. Your card is a good example as it's the worst card I have ever came across.

So even if you won't use faster Wi-Fi connections I would still advise you to buy a two spatial stream card. As for Intel 7260 - the driver issues have been sorted out as far as Wi-Fi goes. As for BT I have never used it, even for a second so someone else would have to chime in on how BT works on 7260.

What sort of problems are Samsung users facing?

 

While I agree with that statement, I should say that in general I am quite OK with this card. It has adequate reception in environments where I use it. It doesn't loose connection by itself (except for the kitchen at my grandma's house, but I guess I should just find a more optimal placement for router to achieve better signal distribution, as that house is quite big).

I live in a village with rather slow internet. We only have ADSL here. So I don't really need some high-end wireless card. Except... Well, see, this laptop has only a 100 Mbps Ethernet. And when I need to exchange a few dozens gigabytes of data with my desktop PC, which has a Gigabit wired connection and is capable to achieve quite decent transfer speeds... But I only get around 10 MB/s no matter how I connected to a local network via WiFi or Ethernet. So for that purpose I would probably want a faster wireless card. But also I would have to get a faster ADSL modem-router for this house as my current ASUS DSL-N10 has only 150 Mbps WiFi and only 100 Mbps Ethernet ports. By the way, what do you think about ASUS DSL-N17U?

Care to explain?

What decent but inexpensive card, compatible with Samsung R528, you can recommend? Given tat I need maximum WLAN-to-LAN speed at a minimum price.
In this post from 2012 you recommend an Intel 6200. Do you still think that this is a good option?
And what card with BT would you recommend?
What can you say about Atheros AR5B22 and Broadcom BCM943228HMB?
I would like to try and see whether my laptop supports WiFi+BT combo cards. If it doesn't I would go with card that is WiFi-only.

OK. Got it. I just saw on the internet that some sellers warn their potential customers to check whether their laptop has support for combo-cards.

Some people were saying that they have very unstable connection etc. But that was't necessary Samsung users. The problem with Samsung is that all people with my model or similar to my model that tried 7260 was unable to activate BT.

 

ASUS device seem fine - it's surprisingly inexpensive as well.
As for Broadcom and Atheros cards you've asked about - these are just "some cards" - not terrible but not particularly good either. If you come across a cheap one and feel like trying, you might as well do it - it won't be any worse than your current one.

And as for why is the AR928x the worst series of cards I came across - it's a long story but basically these cards rarely ever work. You are the second person in this forum to be pleased with one. In most cases these work reasonably well with 802.11g Wi-Fi but crawl to a near halt (at like 150KB/s) after a while with 802.11n. The range is poor, so is the reception and of course throughput. The worst part is that it cannot be solved - if someone has those issues all they can do is replace the card. It's not something that driver updates rectify.

Intel 6200 is still fine but its version with BT - 6230 isn't. It has some issues probably related to interference of BT and Wi-Fi (same antenna and the same frequency for 2.4GHz). Intel did not solve it permanently with driver updates so I would stay away from 6230.

 

Okay, than I won't be getting any of these, as I don't want to get "just some card".
But which decent yet inexpensive WiFi+BT combo card you can recommend for me? If there is any.

 

I almost convinced myself that I should go with 2x2 Wireless-N solution. But than I stumbled upon this test.
Man, those numbers...

Spoiler: N-6200 vs. AC-7260

I ran LAN Speed Test on my setup, and got even better numbers than Legit Reviews got on their Intel 6200 AGN:

Spoiler: Kitchen (router behind a brick wall)

Spoiler: Living room (1m from router)

I guess I should just take the risk and see for myself whether a generic version of 7260HMW can work in my laptop or not...
Is $22 (with shipping) a reasonable price for an unused generic 7260HMW?

 

Yes it is good price.
I don't know why their numbers are so small - my 7260 goes up to some 350mbps of actual throughput (while transferring via ftp from NAS)

 

So, almost 45MB/s of actual transfer speed? Nice.

 

Yes indeed but that means spending extra on a 802.11ac router (no less than a $100 for a good one).

 

Sure. I'll be getting something like DSL-AC56U if I'll be able to get 7260 to work properly in my laptop.

 

Received my AC-7260 today. Bluetooth doesn't work. Tried to put a tape on pin 51 and pin 20. Doesn't work. Oh well.
But what really bothers me is that WiFi gets disconnected after I resume my laptop from sleep mode. Any advice?