S200E/Q200E 2nd antenna for upgraded WiFi, Bluetooth, WiDi


The ASUS  S200E and Q200E are lovely laptops, but unfortunately they lack Bluetooth and they do not support Intel’s WiDi 🙁

Fortunately, all is not lost! With a bit of perseverance and a few dollars (approx $40USD) you can get better WiFi performance, good bluetooth support, and even WiDi on your S200E or Q200E. 🙂

Here is how:

#1 You will need to be willing to open up your laptop, you can see the steps necessary here.
#2 You will need an appropriate combo WiFi/bluetooth card, I recommend the Intel 6235 card (available for about $28 on Amazon with free shipping).
#3 You will need an additional WiFi antenna cable (available for about $10 on Amazon with free shipping).

With those three items under your belt, the upgrade is surprisingly easy (click the link for more photos, but here are some of the most relevant ones)

S200E/Q200E: If replacing wifi card, very carefully remove the single wifi antenna connector

S200E/Q200E: If replacing wifi card, very carefully remove the single wifi antenna connector

Adding additional wifi/bluetooth antenna for use with upgraded Intel wifi card

Adding additional wifi/bluetooth antenna for use with upgraded Intel wifi card

Routing for the new wifi antenna

Routing for the new wifi antenna

The upgraded results are excellent:

  • WiFi connections up to 300Mbs (I generally get about 220Mbs with the Intel 6235, before the upgrade I believe I was around 100Mbs)
  • Bluetooth works well (I have used it with Parrot Zik headphones and a variety of bluetooth speakers with no problems)
  • WiDi works well once you configure the drivers correctly
  • Overall 5 star rating since the Intel 6235 mini pci-e half length card words perfectly in the ASUS laptops!

Please let me know if you have any questions and enjoy your nice S200E or Q200E!

PS this is even a nice upgrade for the ASUS VivioBook X202E as it adds WiDi capabilities (though the X202E already has bluetooth…)

29 comments

  • winston

    Thanks for the write-up. I’ve got it recognizing BT, the wifi signal is very strong, but I can’t seem to get WIDI to work. Can you tell me what drivers you’re using, as well as any software downloaded to enable it? BTW, I have a tyco dual antenna (comes spliced in the middle,) with the original antenna on main and the secondary antenna (white) on aux.

    Thanks in advance.

    • Hi Winston,
      Thank you for your comment. Great job on the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth upgrade! As for WiDi, have you made sure to install the latest Intel HD 4000 drivers? In addition to that suggestion, if you haven’t already read it, there are some very good instructions in this forum thread.

      Please let me know if that does not help you Winston and I will try to put together more specifics on what I am using.

      Best regards,
      -JD

  • Bryan

    I see what you did, seems very simple. But for the second antenna, how are we supposed to run the cord? It is so long, but does it matter, the instructions seem vague for that. I plan on upgrading to an SSD, but then i saw this and decided why not.

    • Hi Bryan,
      Thank you for your good question. I just wrapped the excess cable in a loop and then secured it on top of the SSD with tape to keep it in place.

      You can see what it looks like in this photo. Please note however that I did move the antenna down a bit so that the battery did not obstruct its signal, otherwise everything is as shown in the photo.

      Good luck on your upgrades Bryan and enjoy your nice laptop! 🙂

      Best regards,
      -JD

  • I was just curious my wife has no use for bluetooth or WiDi and I am installing a hybrid drive in hers because she doesn’t want to buy an SSD but I figure since I’m in there putting a better antenna would be a benefit for her just for stronger signal. My question is with the stock WiFi card is there any reason I couldn’t just install your recommended antenna to the aux port or bypass that factory one altogether and plug this antenna in place of the existing main port?

    • Hi Daniel,
      Thank you for your comment and I apologize it took me so long to respond.

      Congratulations on the hybrid drive upgrade, I think your wife will like the added speed and she’s right the cost is hard to beat! 🙂

      My recommendation would be to leave the original antenna installed as is and add the ‘extra’ antenna to the AUX port. The reason why I would not bypass (disconnect) the factory antenna is that it is likely routed to a slightly better position than will be possible with the new extra antenna. i would still add the extra antenna to the aux port though, because two antennas IS a good idea because antenna diversity or MIMO (depending on your wifi card) will then be available to you. 🙂

      Please let me know how everything goes Daniel and great job fixing up your wife’s nice laptop!
      -JD

  • Giuseppe

    Hi JD,

    Many thanks,

    I’ve finally solved issues with my S200e / WiDi configuration.
    Really helpfull instructions 🙂

    keep posting 🙂
    Giuseppe

  • PMD

    Just bought a refurbed S200E and found your posts about upgrading the SSD and WiFi. Is there any reason why this same WiFi upgrade path wouldn’t work for a newer card like the 7260 (with 802.11ac and BT 4)?

    • Hi PMD,
      Thank you for your comment. The 7260 should work great in the S200E 🙂

      Enjoy your nice laptop and let me know if you decide to go ahead with the upgrade!

      PS do you have an AC router?

  • Keegan Olton

    Hey I am about 2 years late to the x202e vivobook Party but I am trying to get a ultamite-n 6300 adapter to work in my zippy little x202e. I added 2 antennas, and I have installed theost up to date driver, and I can see all of the networks available but I fail to connect. I did manage to connect to a 5ghz network by pushing the button on the router rather than typing in a password on my laptop- though stoll fail to connect to networks that have no encryption. Any thoughts?

    • Hi Keegan,
      Congrats on completing the hardware upgrade!

      Thanks for all the background info, that is very helpful. It is definitely a good sign that you can see all the networks, and very interesting about the pushbutton (probably WPS) connection working. Thankfully the connection issue is likely just related to a software settings/driver problem. Could I ask a few questions:
      What OS are you using?
      What driver version? (I recommend the latest Intel drivers directly from Intel)
      Did you have any issues like this prior to the upgrade?

      Gracias!
      -J.D.

      • Keegan Olton

        SO i had an x202e with a pentium processor, a cracked screen- a capacitor melted off the motherboard, and I purchased a motherboard with an i3-3217u to replace it for cheap, got the samsung evo ssd, and a new digitizer-

        Right now I am responding to you on that unit, after swapping the old atheros card back in- no problems, connects right up.

        I have the latest drivers from the intel site- 15.something something- I checked with intel’s live chat service to be sure.

        I am on windows 8.1

        Everything else is working perfectly. I am wondering if it is something to do with the other two drivers that show up when I look into the device- One is an ASUS driver (netwfw01.dat), and the other is a windows compatibility driver (vwifibus.sys).

  • Jeremy Downs

    Where can I find the drivers for the Intel 6235 mini pci-e half length card? I can’t seem to find any that work correctly.

  • Scott

    soo regarding the Asus q200e , can you fit any intel antenna card?
    because i would upgrade to the dual band card bc i have a dual band router 5.5ghz (max speed)

    “http://www.amazon.com/Intel-7260-HMWG-Wireless-AC-7260-Bluetooth/dp/B00DMCVKMU/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1432968654&sr=1-2&keywords=Intel+Network+7260”

    and i was thinking a 500GB SSD wich i will do later on, i really wish i could of upgraded ram .-.)

    • Hi Scott,
      Thank you for your comment. The card you selected will fit!
      Intel Network 7260.HMWG. I have used that particular card on a number of laptops and I highly recommend it.

      *Not all Intel cards will fit, as some have older connectors and some have newer connectors.

      Please let me know if you have any other questions!

      Best regards,
      -J.D.

      PS I too wish the RAM was upgradeable, that is one of the few drawbacks of today’s ultrabook style laptops 🙁

      • Scott

        thanks!!! quick question , ive never had a SSD before , and i want to know what kinda experience do you get , like reliable? fast? because I plan on using a SSD in my Main Computer Rig , I was planning to do (2) 500gb’s in RAID 1 or 0 for my main Programming/editing programs, and im just on the edge of should i really go to an ssd , my father tells me it really isn’t worth it but im not really sure hes all that right. i wanna make sure Going for a SSD is a good choice and not a bad 1 and waste of money.

        • Hi Scott,
          Thank you for your great question!

          First, good work on researching and putting some thought into storage for your computer. It is fun to really learn about computer hardware and customize your machine to your exact specs, all the while being conscious of the most “bang for your buck”.

          With all that being said, for me a SSD is the single best upgrade that I know of. The speeds are an order of magnitude greater than the fastest HDD. Your computer will boot faster and shut down faster. If you suspend, that is faster too. Not to mention application loading times, and if you program then you will likely appreciate faster project loading times and compiling (this may be a bit CPU limited though). Overall a SSD is just an amazing upgrade and it removes one of the last mechanical/moving-part from a PC (except for fans which often still remain).

          I purchased the first generation of 80GB Intel SSDs many years ago at a relatively insane price and I absolutely loved it, since then I have basically upgraded every machine I have to SSD. It can make a slow (CPU) machine like a nettop feel fast, and it can make a fast PC (desktop etc.) feel blazing fast. 😉

          As for the RAID setup, I would recommend (2) in RAID1 for data security or just a single larger 1TB drive. RAID0 striping for SSDs is a bit overkill IMHO as you will likely saturate the SATA connection and not realize any substantial performance gains, while increasing your chance for data loss/failure.

          Please let me know what you decide and if you have any questions! I would also be happy to make specific SSD brand/model recommendations if so desired 🙂

          Best regards,
          -J.D.

          PS I do not mean to contradict your dad, especially for use scenarios where you need a ton of space and speed is not an issue (movies, huge data, NAS applications) then HDDs are still king and cannot be beat (yet) from a dollar per GB/TB standpoint.. In your instance though, with it being your main PC and you being a programmer, I highly recommend a SSD.

  • Bjarke

    So I just upgraded my X202E with the 7260 card. Unfortunately it am currently only capable of copying files to and from the pc at a rate of ~10 megabytes/s. This is sort of a bummer, as I was hoping to hit the 20-30 megabytes/s ballpark.

    My router is the ASUS RT-AC68U, and the laptop is about 15 feet away from the router, obstructed only by one wall. The only other AC-device on the router, is another laptop (ASUS G751 – also with the 7260).

    I realized when doing the upgrade, that my model has two wifi-antennas. I presume that this is the better option, compared to routing an antenna myself as you have done in this post?

    Any suggestions? I do move quite a lot of big files to and from the pc, so all performance improvements would be very much appreciated. To be more specific, I especially move a lot of files between the two laptops. From my understanding the router should have a maximum theoretic bandwith of 1300 megabits/s on the AC, and while I know this is not a realistic goal, I would still think my performance could be improved substantially.

    • Hi Bjarke,
      Thank you for your comment. I am sorry to hear about the slow speeds 🙁

      Hopefully we can figure out what the issue is!

      A couple questions:
      #1 what link speed are you getting on the X202E?*
      #2 what link speed are you getting on the ASUS G751?
      #3 do you have any other device(s) you can copy from/to?**

      *to see the link speed, you will want to check wifi connection properties and look for the “Speed” listing under “Connection”, in Windows 10 this would be Start -> Search -> View Network Connections -> WiFi (double click that adapter)
      *if you are copying to another wifi device, that can significantly reduce speeds… if you are copying to a wired ethernet device at full speed, then that would be an ideal test.

      So, in an ideal situation you have:
      (A) Your x202E connecting at 860Mbps+
      (B) A Gigabit Ethernet device (such as a NAS, PC or G751) connected to the router at 1000Mbps

      And then I would expect 30 MB/s at least or considerably more…

      On the other hand, if it is wireless to wireless (like the X202E to G751) and one of the devices is getting a low link speed then 10 MB/s could be about right. Can you test with one of those devices (preferably the G751) connected via Ethernet and see what transfer speeds you get? There are some software/driver adjustments that may improve the situation but first I would really like to see that and the link speeds, then we can diagnose where the bottleneck is 🙂

      Best regards,
      -J.D.

      • Bjarke

        Hi J.D

        Thank you so much for your quick response! It really triggered me to do some proper testing! 🙂

        Since I am feeling at bit under the weather, I figured that I might as well do a bit of testing today.
        I had an old ITX-pc lying around, that has a gigabit ethernet port, so I connected this to router.

        My link speeds on both the G751 and the X200E varied in link speed between 500 and 700 mbit. My router reports the signal to both devices as “strong”. It’s stable at strong, never reaching it’s maximum “rating” of “very strong” on either device.

        Here are my results:
        https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4743925/results.jpg

        All the tests are done sequentially.

        So clearly my bottleneck is at the G751 and not the X200E. This was actually quite a surprise for me, especially since there are no obstructions between the G751 and the router. The distance between the two is a bit greater though, at about 8 meters (about 24 feet) compared to the 15 feet between the X200S and the router.

        So I guess I have to turn my attention to the G751. I think it’s curious how the laptop is reporting a link speed of 700 mbits while only having a throughput in the 120 mbit range. Just for the heck of it, I tried to position my trustly little FIT-PC2 near the G751, and it maxes out it’s 72 mbit n-connection at about 7 MB/s. This makes me think, that something can be done by tinkering the right settings in the G751! 🙂

        • Hi Bjarke,
          Thanks for the great update! That is VERY good news that the X200E WiFi is running at a reasonable speed 🙂

          Awesome troubleshooting on your part! That is one of my fav things about having some old hardware around (like your ITX-PC) because it can really come in handy when troubleshooting or working on projects 🙂

          Please keep me posted on your G751 issue, that is quite odd about the link speed vs. transfer rate issue. You could also check the QoS settings on drivers/router and maybe even disable IPv6 (and just use IPv4). My suggestions are a bit random, but with WiFi and SAMBA networking sometimes random is what it takes 😉

          Have a great week Bjarke and I look forward to hearing from your again!

          Best regards,
          -J.D.

  • Rich Crowley

    I have a S200E. If I do the Intel 6235 card upgrade and the antenna upgrade will I be able to connect a blue tooth keyboard and mouse?

    • Hi Rich,
      Thank you for your comment. Yes, you should be good to go with bluetooth on the 6235 + S200E. Keyboard and mouse should be no problem 🙂

      Best regards,
      -J.D.

  • dimitrisz123

    Hi, i would like to ask if the antenna will work fine if i put it like you did in the bottom part of the laptop, instead of putting it in the standard position in the top part of the laptop, above the lcd screen and vertically

    What are the differences?

    • Hi Dimitrisz123!
      Thank you for your great question.

      Reception seemed fine when I installed the 2nd antenna in the bottom portion of the laptop. Having two antennas, one in a different orientation/location can sometimes be helpful. However, in my opinion, the main objective should be to keep the antenna clear of metal obstructions blocking its signal. As such, if you have a way to mount the 2nd antenna in the display that would be preferable as most of the display is made of plastic… rather than the PCB and electrical components that would block the signal with the antenna in the bottom of the laptop.

      Best regards,
      -J.D.

  • CJ

    Mad props for this. I own the same laptop and bought the Intel 6235 card as a result of your post. Super easy upgrade and the computer feels much snappier already when relying on network data. (webpage loading etc)

    What surprised me the most was that I didn’t have to do anything else – the computer recognized the card immediately on reboot, a new “Bluetooth” logo appeared in the taskbar, and wireless immediately fired up looking for networks.

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