-: In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to replace
an expansion card inside of a laptop.
Now the laptop I'm going to be using is a Lenovo Y540,
and this one uses a mini PCIe connector
to be able to use a Wi-Fi card embedded into this laptop.
Now your laptop will place this at a different location,
but the process is essentially the same to replace it.
On this laptop,
this wireless card is located right here
so it's pretty easy to get to.
And on your laptop, it may be in a different location.
So check your manual to figure out the location of yours
and figure out how you can update it on your system.
Now on mine,
I'm simply going to peel back this little plastic shield
so it's out of the way,
and you'll notice we have a mini PCIe connector right here.
This is a small little expansion card
that is going to be serving for our Wi-Fi
or wireless networking.
And you'll notice there is a black
and gray cable coming out of the side here,
and those are actually going to be my antenna.
So the first thing I need to do is disconnect those antenna
from this laptop.
To do that, I'm simply going to grab a pair of tweezers.
I'm going to grab onto that antenna connector and pull upward
because it is a button type connector
that simply pushes with pressure to connect
or pulls with pressure to disconnect.
Now that I've gotten both of those off,
I'm just going to push them out of the way with my fingers
and push them to the side.
And now you'll notice this card is being held in
with a single screw right here.
To get that out, I'll simply use my screwdriver.
And as I do that, you may notice
that this card is starting to move its way up.
When you have a mini PCIe card
and it's screwed down, it sits like this.
But as you release that screw,
it's going to start pushing its way up
almost to a 45 degree angle
because that is the way it gets inserted and taken in
or out of the slot when you're applying a new card.
So now you'll see that it's up at a 45 degree angle,
I can simply grab it with my fingers
and pull and it comes right out.
And now I have that expansion card.
Now if I wanted to replace this
because this was a wireless end card
and I wanted a new wireless AC or wireless AX card,
I could simply buy one that's going to fit
into this mini PCIe slot
and then take it, insert it in at a 45 degree angle,
making sure that it's sitting in the right way,
giving it a little pressure,
and then I will sit it down with my finger,
grabbing it with my thumb,
I'm going to grab the screw,
and I'm going to put that screw right back into place.
And there we go,
that is now screwed back in.
Now this wireless card isn't going to work great just yet.
And the reason for that is,
I haven't reconnected my antennas.
When you're dealing with a wireless card or a cellular card,
the antenna is a very important thing.
If you don't connect an antenna,
this card will only be able to go a few feet
with wireless signal instead of being able to go 30,
50, or 100 feet like it should.
And so I want to make sure those antennas are connected again.
Now, if you remember correctly,
we had the black antenna here and the gray antenna here.
And on this card,
it actually labels that using a little black arrow here
and a little white arrow here
so I'm going to place the gray one first
'cause it's closest to me,
and then I'll put the black one in.
You can try do this with your fingers,
but if you have trouble,
you can always use one of those tweezers
to help push it in place.
Simply line it up, push down on it with your thumb,
and it should snap into place.
And if it doesn't, you might want to use tweezers.
In my case, I'm going to use my tweezers
and my pry bar to apply the pressure
and make sure that is in place.
Now always be careful when working with these antennas
because if you do it incorrectly
and you just yank on the cable,
you can actually pull the antenna cable out
instead of pulling the button off of the connector.
And that will damage the antenna,
and your Wi-Fi will no longer work in this laptop.
Next, I'm going to grab that black one, line it up,
and then push it down with that pry bar.
Okay, now I'm giving a little tug on it with my tweezers
and I can see that they are in place
and they're not moving as shown here.
If I pull on them a little, they're not moving anywhere.
They're just sliding back and forth
like they're supposed to.
And then there is this piece of plastic,
it's just a little bit of tape to hold them down
and keep it out of the way of other components,
so I'll put that back.
So now that we've installed the wireless card,
you've seen how to take out a card
and put in a new card using your mini PCIe expansion slot.
Another thing to note when it comes
to Wi-Fi cards is their antennas are going to be wrapped around
the external part of your case.
You'll notice here,
those cables started here on the card,
they went up, and then they curve backwards,
and we could see those cables going all the way down here,
and they're actually going to go under the battery
and around the entire case.
So remember, when installing a Wi-Fi card,
always make sure those antennas are connected
and that you don't damage these cables running out
as they go along the rest of the perimeter
as you're doing other components or upgrades to your laptop.