Intel Pro Set Wireless 3945abg to n upgrade

[mito]

Hello, new to the forum but a little techie
I have a two years old but powerfull lappy Dell Latitude 520 with Centrino Duo with the title wireless card and as have since time ago a wrt350n and a wrt600n routers with last dd-wrt firm on them, i woud like to upgrade the wireless card to an Intel WiFi Link 5300abgn or a 5100 or a 4965 Intel card.
My question is if any of them fit in the wifi slot, i counted the pins my current card has and are 17+8= 25 but don't know if an N card will fit the full pins slot, the cable for the 3rd antenna already is there unconected.
Any advise will be greattly apreciated.
Rgds.

[The Dude]

Sounds like its a mini PCIe slot. It should be 8 contacts, a gap equivalent to 4 contacts, then a further 18 contacts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

[mito]

Dude, thx, already bought a Intel 4965 abgn as seems to fit the slot, as soon as i get it i'll let you know.
Rgds

[The Dude]

Be careful taking the antenna connectors/cables off and on. You might have trouble getting it to work in the 5 GHz band though. Your laptop likely only has the 2.4 GHz antennas. Looks like the new card uses three antennas too, if true that also could be a problem. I don't know enough about it to say for sure one way or the other. I just did a quick look see on Google.

[mito]

Hi Dude, thx for interest, yes the card uses tree antennas, there already is a third antenna cable unpluged and seems to be waiting for it connector to be plugged, it is just over the card but unpluged.
Already read and saw a customer revew at Amazon where the guy connects only two cables to the card and says he got n speeds without the third antena.
As soon as it arrives from Amazon and connect it i'll let you know about it.
Rgds.

[The Dude]

I believe the number of antennas has to do with MIMO. My DIR-615 only had two but my DIR-655 has three. I've got a DWA-542 that only has two antennas and a DWA-552 that has three. Both wireless cards work OK with my DIR-655. If I read it correctly more antennas give you more signal paths and a better chance of a good signal. Something like that anyway.