Worth it to upgrade laptops...

[Nordic]

My laptop is a lenovo b570. I saw a Intel Centrino Advanced N 6205 wifi card for a price of $10. It seems to be a bit better than my broadcom 4313 that is a in there. The main benefit i see the dual band feature. After a bit more googling I found out my laptop wont just take any wifi card. I would need to put on a modded bios that had the wifi card whitelist removed.

Worth the $10 and effort?

 

[[Ion]]

I don't think so. For practically anything you do with a laptop, I don't think that the difference will be noticeable--particularly given that you'd need to mod the BIOS. Maybe for streaming 1080p over a long distance, but that's hardly a typical use

 

[Liquid Cool]

James...

Perhaps spending that $10 towards filling the slot next to it would be a worthy upgrade. Pretty nice this laptop has an m-sata slot.

My current toy(HP ENVY6-1129wm) they saw fit to add them to the Intel version, too bad I bought the AMD version...which doesn't have it.

I took a look at your laptop here, seems pretty loaded for what they're calling a cheap, but sturdy laptop. I personally like the looks of the keyboard.

When I get a laptop in...I usually upgrade memory and toss in an SSD then sell the hard drive on e-bay to help recoup some of my cost. If you're laptop came in with 4GB's, you can probably find another matching 4GB stick on e-bay from someone else that upgraded. Usually pretty cheap...that might be another cheap upgrade that would be worth it. I recently sold a stick for 19.99, that seems to be about the going price for 4GB.

Also...to actually answer your inquiry...I don't think it would be worth it unless you're having 'constant' connectivity issues. I've gone this path before several times...and I've never noticed much of a difference.

Best,

LC

 

[Nordic]

Perhaps spending that $10 towards filling the slot next to it would be a worthy upgrade. Pretty nice this laptop has an m-sata slot.

Also...to actually answer your inquiry...I don't think it would be worth it unless you're having 'constant' connectivity issues. I've gone this path before several times...and I've never noticed much of a difference.

It does have an msata port next to it. I plan on eventually putting a little ssd there I think. Its not like I am looking to upgrade. I just saw a good deal and am thinking of getting it. If I wanted to upgrade my laptop more I could get another 4gb stick to make it 8gb and have it be dual channel instead of single. I havn't seen the need, or a good deal, for that yet though.

As I mentioned, I am most interested in the dual band feature. My network is pretty congested at times and slows down. I also kinda like the idea of having my own personal network with everyone else on the 2.4ghz network.

I am most worried about flashing a new bios on my laptop although I have done it on my desktop many times and even several gpu's. Looking up this mod does not show many people having problems either.

I guess I had enough qualms to make a thread.

James...
I took a look at your laptop here, seems pretty loaded for what they're calling a cheap, but sturdy laptop. I personally like the looks of the keyboard.

First review I read that was pretty much my laptop. There are apparently a lot of b570's. When I look for reviews I find a lenovo b570 with an i5 and a nvidea 640. It is a pretty good laptop. I just went to the store trying to catch a holiday sale for an i3 sandy for under $400. For $350 I was happy. Battery life is its biggest downfall.