Acer Aspire 7250 laptop - Wireless network adapter

I am new and old - new to this community, but old as in aged 67. If I ask a stupid question, please don’t belittle me. I started using computers back in the 80’s when my office purchased an IBM desktop with DOS, and REAL floppy disks. LOL! I learned a lot about operating computers by trial and error. I have a question about my old Acer Aspire 7250 laptop. I know, I know. Why bother with one this old is what you are thinking, right? It still works just fine and I don’t want to buy a new laptop no more than I use it. Is it possible to replace my Qualcomm Atheros AR5B125 Wireless network adapter 802.11 b/g/n with a newer, faster dual band adapter? Is it as simple as finding one the same size and number of pins with 802.11 ac capabilities or is it more complicated than that? Will it even work on my old dinosaur laptop or will it overload the CPU?

Thread was edited to add model number to the title

Accepted answers

billsey

The two antennas are for 24GHz and 5GHz. Bluetooth uses the same antenna as WiFi.

All comments

billsey

Your Aspire 7250 came with one of several different WiFi adapters, made using Broadcomm, Atheros or Realtek chipsets and built for Acer by either Foxconn or Liteon. In all of them they connect to the system using a mini PCIe slot and since they support 802.11b/g/n they have two antennas. You should be able to drop pretty much any half height mini PCIe WiFi module in, install appropriate drivers and be up and running. I don't believe there will be any issue with an 802.11ac module, I haven't seen a WiFi 6 module in that form factor yet. The newer laptops use an M.2 interface which allows for more speed on the bus. The cards use two screws to hold them in place and the two antennas connect to little tiny U.fl/IPEX connectors on the board.

Patches0331

Thank you so much for replying. Yes, I did take the back off the laptop and looked. But my laptop has only one antenna on the card. One for Bluetooth is missing because it didn't come with it. I use a USB dongle for that. I know I can buy a USB instead of a card which would be simpler. I enjoy tinkering around with computers, ya know? Just to keep the cobwebs out of my brain and prove I can do it. LOL! Thanks again.