Tuesday, February 14, 2012

HP Slate 500 WiFi problem and fix

The HP Slate 500 uses a Broadcom WiFi card, device ID: PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_4727&REV_01. When AC plugged, this WiFi uses 12-15% CPU constantly, which makes the Slate hot and slow. While powered by battery, no problem.

The fix is to download and update to this driver:

http://www.2shared.com/file/YZ_yhITH/Wireless_Broadcom_51002492_Win.html

Note: don't click on the big "Download" button, the real download link is at the right bottom "Save file to your PC: Download".

Unzip the downloaded Wireless_Broadcom_5.100.249.2_Win7x86x64.zip somewhere, then go to Control Panel, Device Manager, find the Broadcom 802.11n under Network Adapters. Right click on it and select "Update driver software...". Then select "Browse my computer for driver software", and browse to the folder where you just unzipped the zip file to. It takes a while for win7 to verify the digital signature, when it finally prompts, click "yes to install it anyway". It will take another while, be patient.

You may verify that now the driver version is 5.100.249.2 to ensure a successful update. Now plug in AC, connect WiFi, press the alt-ctrl-del button, select Start Task Manager, you should see CPU usage is now down from 12-15% to 0-1%.

If update was not successful, you need to uninstall the old driver first. Be sure to check "delete driver file", otherwise win7 will reintall automatically the old driver when you rescan for new devices. Then manually install the new driver as described above.
Posted by at

6 comments:

  1. UnknownNovember 26, 2015 at 1:56 AM

    hi.
    after trying to update it it told me my device already has the latest driver software ...and after removing the broadcom one I dont have the option of 'updating' as before so I dont know how to manually do that..help please?
    thanks in advance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownNovember 26, 2015 at 2:05 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownNovember 26, 2015 at 2:12 AM

    ok I found out how to do that but it is saying it is not digitally signed..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sean ChenNovember 26, 2015 at 12:32 PM

      As long as it still gives you a option to install, simply ignore that warning message. If not, then you need to reboot in advanced mode (7) and disable driver signature.

      Delete
    2. UnknownNovember 29, 2015 at 9:41 PM

      if i go ahead with installing it it wont harm my computer? Thats what Iam afraid of...and thanks for replying.

      Delete
    3. Sean ChenNovember 29, 2015 at 9:45 PM

      No, just be sure you're not installing something else.

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)