When we decided to move office we swapped all of the developers over from running on desktop PCs to using laptops. We ended up settling on Framework laptops, Framework had a mission to make laptops upgradeable and self-maintainable. This would help reduce e-waste as you won't be throwing away computers just because a single part has failed, and you can upgrade them as needed. Personally I was fed up with throwing out whole laptops just because a battery started bulging, it needed more memory, a screen got cracked or a drive had failed. We'd commited to becoming a B-Corp and this fit in nicely with their aims as well as just making sense both financially and environmentally.
Framework makes it easy, and actively encourages you to open up your own laptop and upgrade/replace parts of it. In fact the ones we ordered were the DIY models so you had to partly assemble them yourself when they arrived. We'd been making all our new starters assemble their machines for years, so it was nice to carry on that tradition.
So when we upgraded our office to WiFi 7 I thought I would test upgrading one of the laptops to WiFi 7 to take advantage of it.
The first issue was finding a WiFi 7 card that I could use with the Framework laptops. They're fairly new and Framework are yet to add it to their marketplace so I had to look online for supported cards. Turns out the Qualcomm QCNCM865 cards will work, but Qualcomm doesn't supply directly, selling only OEM. A quick google turned up an eBay listing and I was able to order it.
Once it showed up, I could open my laptop and replace the existing card with the new one. This was really simple as Framework laptops come with the tool required to open them, and they have just 5 captured screws to undo to pop off the keyboard. Once opened each component has a QR code which you can scan for details of the component. I just found the existing WiFi card and removed it and fitted the replacement, just be careful with wifi card aerial connectors as they've very delicate.
Once installed the drivers were not automatically picked up and I no longer had network access, so I had to grab them on another computer and put them on a USB stick and move them over. If I was doing it again, I would download them onto the laptop before doing the swap. The drivers were a little tricky to find as Qualcomm only sell via OEM so I had to find drivers from a laptop manufacturer that had this card installed in a laptop and grab them. I installed both the WiFi drivers and Bluetooth. Rebooted the laptop and then reconnect to the WiFi and everything appeared to be working,
The only issue I then had was audio wasn't playing through my Bluetooth headphones, turned out I had to disable the AMD BT Audio Device, which was taking control of them, and is no longer used when the replacement WiFi card was installed.
This is why I love the Framework laptops, a lot of laptops won't let you upgrade any of the components. The ones that do, this will probably void the warranty and it'll be tricky to do. With the Framework they actively encourage you to update and upgrade your laptop, and make it super easy to do.
