jaymonkey
Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
- Messages
- 4,080
- Motherboard
- GB Z490 Vision D
- CPU
- i9-10850K OC @ 5.2 GHz
- Graphics
- RX6800-XT+UHD630
- Mac
- Mobile Phone
A few months back I added a PCIe WiFi & BT card to my desktop Hackintosh system. The card I bought was based on the BCM943602CS chipset which is a 3x3 MIMO device and is natively supported by MacOS, these cards can be found cheap on eBay for around £30.00 (approx $37):
The card included three antennas which connected directly to the PCIe cards back plate, hardware installation was straight forward as I had two unused PCIe x1 slots spare.
After installation of the hardware and a few software tweaks everything seemed fine the Wifi and BT.
However after a few days I started to notice that my BT devices where quite glitchy, My Apple Magic Mouse would stutter and the tracking was not as precise as it should be. Connecting BT wireless Headphones would result in poor audio that would drop out after moving just a few meters away from the PC.
I have a large Corsair tower system that sits under my desk, after thinking about the location of the three antenna's (directly connected to the rear I/O of the PC) I realised that this is actually a very poor location for the antennas as the signal would have to pass through the metal case and electronics of the PC, additionally the antennas would be very susceptible to electro-magnetic-interference (EMI) from the PC's electronics.
The design of these add in PCIe WiFi/BT cards and also PC motherboards that have the antenna's directly connected to the rear I/O is extremely poor and can only lead to poor signal performance in my opinion.
So I decided to try repositioning the antennas, although introducing additional connectors and cable would drop the over dB of the signal I figured that having a clear line of sight and repositioning them away from the metal of the case and the EMI of the PC's electronics would outweigh the slight drop in dB.
So I ordered three 2 meter Male to Female RG174 RP-SMA extension cables from ebay, these are very cheap and it cost less than £10 ($12.5) for thee cables delivered.
I found a piece of plastic angle in my workshop and drilled three 6.4mm holes in it, I tie-wrapped the three SMA extension cables together and attached them to the three SMA connectors on the PCIe card, then routed the cables up to my desk and attached the threaded female SMA connectors to the plastic angle using the lock nuts that came with the cables and then re-attached the antennas.
I then positioned the now remote antennas towards the back of my desk using double sided tape.
The difference to the quality of the BT and WiFi signal is outstanding, my magic mouse is now buttery smooth and i can use my Bluetooth Wireless headphones in the next room with perfect Audio. I would think that this antenna mod would improve the BT and WiFi signal on any tower system that is situated under a desk and using a PCIe WiFT + BT card.
Just thought i'd share this little tip to you all.
Cheers
Jay
The card included three antennas which connected directly to the PCIe cards back plate, hardware installation was straight forward as I had two unused PCIe x1 slots spare.
After installation of the hardware and a few software tweaks everything seemed fine the Wifi and BT.
However after a few days I started to notice that my BT devices where quite glitchy, My Apple Magic Mouse would stutter and the tracking was not as precise as it should be. Connecting BT wireless Headphones would result in poor audio that would drop out after moving just a few meters away from the PC.
I have a large Corsair tower system that sits under my desk, after thinking about the location of the three antenna's (directly connected to the rear I/O of the PC) I realised that this is actually a very poor location for the antennas as the signal would have to pass through the metal case and electronics of the PC, additionally the antennas would be very susceptible to electro-magnetic-interference (EMI) from the PC's electronics.
The design of these add in PCIe WiFi/BT cards and also PC motherboards that have the antenna's directly connected to the rear I/O is extremely poor and can only lead to poor signal performance in my opinion.
So I decided to try repositioning the antennas, although introducing additional connectors and cable would drop the over dB of the signal I figured that having a clear line of sight and repositioning them away from the metal of the case and the EMI of the PC's electronics would outweigh the slight drop in dB.
So I ordered three 2 meter Male to Female RG174 RP-SMA extension cables from ebay, these are very cheap and it cost less than £10 ($12.5) for thee cables delivered.
I found a piece of plastic angle in my workshop and drilled three 6.4mm holes in it, I tie-wrapped the three SMA extension cables together and attached them to the three SMA connectors on the PCIe card, then routed the cables up to my desk and attached the threaded female SMA connectors to the plastic angle using the lock nuts that came with the cables and then re-attached the antennas.
I then positioned the now remote antennas towards the back of my desk using double sided tape.
The difference to the quality of the BT and WiFi signal is outstanding, my magic mouse is now buttery smooth and i can use my Bluetooth Wireless headphones in the next room with perfect Audio. I would think that this antenna mod would improve the BT and WiFi signal on any tower system that is situated under a desk and using a PCIe WiFT + BT card.
Just thought i'd share this little tip to you all.
Cheers
Jay
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