Integrated wireless option... have we given up?

Welcome! Glad to hear you see the feel of family here :-) (wow, I used three senses in that sentence...) Anyway, as far as the integrated wireless, I think we stumbled upon the possibility of a void warranty, and that's why it wasn't pursued. I'm sure someone with the expert knowledge to create one could prolly do it... But to my knowledge, no one has tried. I understand your predicament, though... I'm sure if anyone has any info on these forums, it will be posted here :-) That's what's sweet about this place.

I heard somewhere that there was an open "mini PCI" slot inside the 8886 for an additional device but there is a problem placing a WiFi device in this slot because of routing an antenna. Is adding internal WiFi card completely out of the question, as far as warranty and the antenna issue?

Michael

The minipci slot is where the tv tuner plugs in.. think only problem would be antenna since there isnt a display with integrated antenna offered with sagers here.. think eurocom offered them in past but not anymore.. but i beleive you could get 1 of the antenna connector cables for an orinoco/lucent card and that would allow you to get and external antenna to mount on back of lcd and might be possibillity if you could find the minipci wireless card..

Incorrect. The Mini-PCI slot is empty on the Sager 5600 series and 8880 series. It is located under the keyboard to the left of the 2 memory slots. The TV Tuner is in its own bay on the bottom of the computer and that bay can also be used to hold an additional hard disk.

oh ok i stand corrected.. not having a 8886 yet i was guessing.. thought i had read somewhere that the tv tuner was minipci card..

The tv tuner has its own full spindle, it's actually pretty big, the size of a hard drive for laptops :-) Being that the minipci slot is open, though, I figure there should be some way to make integrated wireless work. Are there any 3rd party companies that add integrated wireless to laptops?

eurocom was offering the display with wireless antenna as an option for a little while.. but dont think they are any more(think it was eurocom) 1 of the canadian sager resellers.. you could get a mini-pci wireless card and then get the adapter for its antenna port to connect a coax and an external antenna you could fit on the back of the lcd i imagnine and it might work...

wifi

Why does Eurocom show the 8886 with wifi option if its not actually available?

they probaly are offering a pcmcia card....

i think someone already mentioned this, but the orinoco 802.1b cards support an external antenna. check out www.netstumbler.com. they have a forum dedicated completely to making antenna for wireless applications like PDA's and notebooks. some are a little more indepth than what you prolly want, but its still a good resource.

Yeah but i think people are wanting an options other then having a pcmcia antenna to break off.. although i think the connector on the internal minipci cards is the same just need the convertor and a source for the card and a way to route the cable.... still netstumbler is a good source

just looked on eurocom's future products page and they had new 888es coming listed as coming on febuary 14th.. I know we should take this with a grain of salt but the features it adds looks great....

-Built-in Wi-FI standard antenna for 802.11b wireless LAN
- 128 MB DDR video; ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics engine
- 16.1-inch UXGA (1600x1200) TFT Active Matrix Display

although that makes me wonder if mobile 9500 has slipped or they just put up wrong number... a 128 mb videocard in a laptop sounds great.. although ukgraphics.com is listing a sparkle geforce fx for sale in the uk with 256 Mb of video memory.. wow..

Well, an M9 with 128 megs of vram would be sweet too :-) Honestly, I don't know if I could choose between a 9500 with 64 megs or a 9000 with 128... that would be a tough choice. Memory makes a huge difference. In any case, looking forward to see the changes that are coming :-)

Extra video memory will not be beneficial unless the GPU itself is fast enough to take advantage of the extra memory. A good example of this was the Rage Mobility 128 which has 16MB and the Mobility M4 32MB which were essentially the same chip. There was absolute no advantage gained in gaming from the extra 16MB of memory. Since the 64MB is not a bottleneck on the Radeon 9000, I really don't think you're going to see any substantial improvements in gaming with the extra 64MB on the same Mobility Radeon 9000 chip.

Hey Dennis, you said you have a 2720 right? Have you ran 3DMARK2001 SE on it? Or attempted to game on it? I was curious of your thoughts on it and how it does in that category.

I have not run it personally, but in reviews it scores around 1,500. I would definitely not do any serious 3D gaming on it. I usually reserve it for if I need to play old school games like Family Feud or Yahtzee

I am no expert when it comes to mini PCI WiFi cards or antennas but I have had experience with them in my line of work. Here is what I do know as it relates to the 5660.

OEM side
A mini PCI WiFi card could be put into a 5660 with the antenna/s in the LCD and function OK. I say OK because putting the antenna/s in with the display does present some issues to overcome. There is potentially a large amount of interference to overcome in LCD housing. (Or in the whole chassis for that matter) This is mainly from the high voltage/frequency inverter used to power the backlight for the display. With a good antenna and proper shielding this can be overcome. Getting an antenna/s made to fit into a 5660 would not be a major problem for an OEM if it was done in volume. I am not aware of an inexpensive way for an individual to get a custom antenna made for a mini PCI WiFi card.(This seems to be due to the fact that the mini PCI WiFi cards are being marketed to the OEM's almost exclusivly) To put the antenna/s in the LCD housing would require some minor changes in the plastics.

DIY side
OK, so much for the OEM side. Now for the do it you selfers out there. Can you put a mini PCI WiFi card in a 5660 with the antenna in the display and have it work? Yes, if you can get all of the parts. (Finding all of the parts seems to be the big problem) Can you do it without voiding your warranty? I doubt it. I have tried a mini PCI 802.11B card in my 5660 and it does work, but not much room to put the antennas. I just laid them off to the side while I held the keyboard up when I tried it.

To sum it up, it can be done but it may not be as easy as just snapping in the card. With the wide spread use of wireless I think it would be a great option for the Sager laptops and a very popular one. The only issue I can see is compatibility between 802.11 standards. (a, b and g) I haven’t seen anyone that makes a mini PCI card that supports more than one 802.11 standard yet.

Just in case you are looking here are some of the main manufactures of mini PCI WiFi cards.
Intel, 3com, Actiontec, z-com, ZCOMAX, Proxim

You may not find information on cards from all of them as some only sell the cards to OEM’s.

I am pretty new to this forum and really like it and I know this is an old thread but wanted to share this discovery. I have a recently purchsed (used but in great condition) 5660.

I too wanted integrated 802.11x connectivity for my lonely mini PCI slot and was fustrated until I found this:

http://www.wneweb.com/products/em9-nb.htm




Looks like it has an antenna built into the card itself. although this antenna may not be the optimal design for reception of a 802.11x signal I am very tempted to give it a try. Any of you more experienced folks with Sager lappy's see any problems with me trying this (hopefully ) solution.

I look forward to your advice.

anybody got any idea if this theory would work?