Sunday, January 29, 2012

BIOS Update F.13 (sp54026.exe) for HP Pavilion dm1z, support now for 5GHz WiFi? Any beneficial mpact on my current Ralink RT5390 wireless card?

I checked the HP.com site for any updates for my HP Pavilion dm1z-3000 CTO Entertainment Notebook PC (the official name) and there is a BIOS update (version F.13) available for the dm1z (sp54026.exe), released on 2011-07-31. The Fix/Enhancement on the HP.com page is described as:
  • Provides support for a new Wireless LAN card. - Enables the "Fan always on" option in the BIOS setup.
It's great that HP provides updates but this has caused some more confusion for me. Which wireless LAN card does this BIOS update support? And does that card support 802.11n over 5GHz? What's the impact for the RT5390 card that's in my unit now?

A user posted a comment on a prior post on this blog stating: "This update was to add the Intel 6230 2.4 and 5GHz dual channel N plus bluetooth to the whitelist of adapters". I don't know if this is accurate or not. Is this the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 (see below)?

Ralink is now headquartered in Taiwan since it was bought by the Taiwanese company MediaTek on May 5, 2011. The Ralink RT5390 wireless card page lists the product as:

The RT5390 is a cost-effective, highly integrated PCIE Wi-Fi single chip containing an 802.11n MAC and baseband, a 2.4 GHz RF, PA, LNA and T/R switch on a single die. It supports a 150 Mbps PHY data rate and fully complies with 802.11b/g/n specifications.

They say the Ralink RT5390 supports a 150 Mbps data rate over 802.11n. I thought the Ralink RT5390 wireless module was a single channel 1x1 supporting only up to 72Mbps? If I upgrade my BIOS to F.13 would my dm1z theoretically be able to get to 150 Mbps? Over WiFi with my cable internet connection I never gets more 30 Mbps (so says speedtest.net) so ultimately this may be a moot point but I want my dm1z to be as optimized as it possibly can be.

Here's the Intel Wireless Products web page and see the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 listed there as a current product, the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230: Product Brief, and the technical support page for the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230.  I'm assuming that the user who posted on this blog is referring to this item. If so, could I update the BIOS to F.13 and then just buy the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 from CDW and insert it into my dm1z?

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