azazel1024
Very Senior Member
So about 18 months ago I bought an HP Envy 4t, in part because it looked pretty upgradable and it was $730 on Amazon. I quickly bought 8GB of low voltage RAM to replace the single 4GB standard voltage SODIMM in there. About 2 months later, it died and needed a new motherboard, which HP was very good at handling the RMA.
For Christmas my in-laws got me a Toshiba Q series 128GB SSD, which I replaced the 500GB HDD with using the 32GB Samsung mSATA cache drive as a boot disk with everything else installed on the 128GB. Works AWESOME.
Well, I figured down the road I'd also replace the Wifi NIC. One of my routers started dying, the one I was using as a router. It ceased routing anything and the admin console would lock-up when this would happen, but it would continue working as an AP just fine. So I swapped the routers around and ran my working 3500L as the router and used the other one as a WAP on the otherside of my house. Well, a month later and the dying router now occasionally refuses to connect new devices. The admin console will also lock-up when this occurs. It'll continue allowing existing devices to connect to it, it'll even allow devices that were connected to it to RECONNECT to it when roaming the house.
It just disallows new devices that haven't been connected in awhile (roughly the last 24hrs) to connect to it until you reboot it. So, time to get a new router.
I wanted an 802.11ac router and I had been thinking of dropping an Intel 7260 11ac card in my laptop, so that I'd have at least one device that could take advantage of the new router.
Then when researching the card, I ran across the dreaded HP BIOS whitelists. Seemed like something HP started around 2009/10 which I hadn't heard of before (I've heard of the Lenovo whitelists and even that Tosh seems to do it, sometimes, occasionally, on some models).
Crap.
Then I read one or two people mention on their newer HP laptops, they got the 7260 working in it.
So to test I dropped my old Intel 1000 Wifi NIC in my laptop as it was never an option for my laptop and I had it laying around. Booted just fine. Hopes up, I bought a 7260 11ac card through an Amazon retailer (Antonline). It showed up last night, dropped it in, and it booted fine and works great!
So no BIOS whitelisting on my HP Envy 4t (if the specific model ends up mattering, it is the 4t-1030us).
I just wanted to share in case anyone has a rather new (say, Ivy Bridge or newer) HP laptop. There may not be a BIOS white list. And/or it might be that they are only implementing whitelisting still on their higher end laptops or something.
As for performance, I can't test 11ac performance or 5ghz performance, as my 3500L only supports up to 300Mbps 2:2 2.4Ghz.
With my old Intel 2230 I'd get 20MB/sec average down and up near my routers 300Mbps enabled router (I have one on channels 6+11 and 40Mhz/300Mbps mode and the other on Channel 1 and 20Mhz/150Mbps so as to not step on the spectrum/bandwidth of the main living room router since that is where most devices get used, not in the basement or the bedrooms which are over the basement). With the 7260 I get 21MB/sec average down and 20.2MB/sec average up.
A very slight gain. I also noticed signal strength near the router is up 3dB and far from the router it is up around 2-3dB also over the 2230 (Identical test spots). It seems like the 7260 must have better signal amplifiers in it and based on the slightly increased speeds, may also have better signal processors (I can't imagine better amps would help when close in).
As a test I also turned off my close in AP to test performance at lower strengths (because I am lazy and didn't want to walk and I was doing all of these tests at my kitchen table, which is one wall and 8ft from my living room router (300Mbps) and about 40ft, a floor and 3 walls from my basement router (150Mbps)). Connecting to the other AP in 20Mhz mode, with around -68dB of signal strength indicated in inSSIDer, the 7260 turns in 3.2MB/sec down and a connection speed of 35Mbps. With the 2230 tossed back in it turned in 2.5MB/sec and a connection speed of 24Mbps at the exact same location (showing -70dB of signal strength). This was repeatable.
For whatever reason I did not bother testing upload speeds in this scenario. At any rate, that is a roughly 28% improvement at low signal strengths.
So I am very, very impressed. I had hoped for no regression in performance under 2.4ghz, but I was NOT prepared for an increase, beyond a statistical quirk. But its been very repeatable and seems to be, both in some testing and also in memory, a noticable increase in speed, generally around 5-6% faster close to whichever AP I am connected to and as much as 20-30% faster when I am at low signal strength (too darned cold to go wandering around outside my house to test it more, and I am statisfied enough I am not going to do any more comparisons between the 2230 and 7260).
Very much looking forward to getting a TP-Link Archer C7 to replace my dying 3500l (and if i like it enough, I'll probably replace my other 3500l with another Archer C7).
Now I just need other 11ac devices...and uh...routers too. I guess those are important.
For Christmas my in-laws got me a Toshiba Q series 128GB SSD, which I replaced the 500GB HDD with using the 32GB Samsung mSATA cache drive as a boot disk with everything else installed on the 128GB. Works AWESOME.
Well, I figured down the road I'd also replace the Wifi NIC. One of my routers started dying, the one I was using as a router. It ceased routing anything and the admin console would lock-up when this would happen, but it would continue working as an AP just fine. So I swapped the routers around and ran my working 3500L as the router and used the other one as a WAP on the otherside of my house. Well, a month later and the dying router now occasionally refuses to connect new devices. The admin console will also lock-up when this occurs. It'll continue allowing existing devices to connect to it, it'll even allow devices that were connected to it to RECONNECT to it when roaming the house.
It just disallows new devices that haven't been connected in awhile (roughly the last 24hrs) to connect to it until you reboot it. So, time to get a new router.
I wanted an 802.11ac router and I had been thinking of dropping an Intel 7260 11ac card in my laptop, so that I'd have at least one device that could take advantage of the new router.
Then when researching the card, I ran across the dreaded HP BIOS whitelists. Seemed like something HP started around 2009/10 which I hadn't heard of before (I've heard of the Lenovo whitelists and even that Tosh seems to do it, sometimes, occasionally, on some models).
Crap.
Then I read one or two people mention on their newer HP laptops, they got the 7260 working in it.
So to test I dropped my old Intel 1000 Wifi NIC in my laptop as it was never an option for my laptop and I had it laying around. Booted just fine. Hopes up, I bought a 7260 11ac card through an Amazon retailer (Antonline). It showed up last night, dropped it in, and it booted fine and works great!
So no BIOS whitelisting on my HP Envy 4t (if the specific model ends up mattering, it is the 4t-1030us).
I just wanted to share in case anyone has a rather new (say, Ivy Bridge or newer) HP laptop. There may not be a BIOS white list. And/or it might be that they are only implementing whitelisting still on their higher end laptops or something.
As for performance, I can't test 11ac performance or 5ghz performance, as my 3500L only supports up to 300Mbps 2:2 2.4Ghz.
With my old Intel 2230 I'd get 20MB/sec average down and up near my routers 300Mbps enabled router (I have one on channels 6+11 and 40Mhz/300Mbps mode and the other on Channel 1 and 20Mhz/150Mbps so as to not step on the spectrum/bandwidth of the main living room router since that is where most devices get used, not in the basement or the bedrooms which are over the basement). With the 7260 I get 21MB/sec average down and 20.2MB/sec average up.
A very slight gain. I also noticed signal strength near the router is up 3dB and far from the router it is up around 2-3dB also over the 2230 (Identical test spots). It seems like the 7260 must have better signal amplifiers in it and based on the slightly increased speeds, may also have better signal processors (I can't imagine better amps would help when close in).
As a test I also turned off my close in AP to test performance at lower strengths (because I am lazy and didn't want to walk and I was doing all of these tests at my kitchen table, which is one wall and 8ft from my living room router (300Mbps) and about 40ft, a floor and 3 walls from my basement router (150Mbps)). Connecting to the other AP in 20Mhz mode, with around -68dB of signal strength indicated in inSSIDer, the 7260 turns in 3.2MB/sec down and a connection speed of 35Mbps. With the 2230 tossed back in it turned in 2.5MB/sec and a connection speed of 24Mbps at the exact same location (showing -70dB of signal strength). This was repeatable.
For whatever reason I did not bother testing upload speeds in this scenario. At any rate, that is a roughly 28% improvement at low signal strengths.
So I am very, very impressed. I had hoped for no regression in performance under 2.4ghz, but I was NOT prepared for an increase, beyond a statistical quirk. But its been very repeatable and seems to be, both in some testing and also in memory, a noticable increase in speed, generally around 5-6% faster close to whichever AP I am connected to and as much as 20-30% faster when I am at low signal strength (too darned cold to go wandering around outside my house to test it more, and I am statisfied enough I am not going to do any more comparisons between the 2230 and 7260).
Very much looking forward to getting a TP-Link Archer C7 to replace my dying 3500l (and if i like it enough, I'll probably replace my other 3500l with another Archer C7).
Now I just need other 11ac devices...and uh...routers too. I guess those are important.
