The Fenvi Mini PCI Express to PCI Express Adapter
Hi everyone,
Today, I want to show you the Fenvi Mini PCI Express to PCI Express Adapter. This is an adapter that turns those Mini PCI Express Wi-Fi/Bluetooth adapters commonly found on older laptops into a PCI Express adapter that can be used on Desktop computers.
I wrote about me having installed the Intel Centrino Wireless-N 135 Mini PCI Express Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card with a U.FL to RP-SMA antenna cable into my Media Center PC some days ago. Before that, I was using that same card with this adapter. Let’s take a look at what comes with it.
The adapter comes in a simple box. Inside, we have all of the contents.
It includes the adapter itself, a Small Form Factor/Low Profile bracket, 2 antennas, the USB Cable that is needed for Bluetooth-compatible Wi-Fi cards, screws, and the user manual.
The adapter itself is simple in design, with just the Mini PCI Express slot and the USB cable connector:
Now, it’s time to install the Mini PCI Express card:
Finally, we insert it into the motherboard with the USB cable connected. This is because the Intel Centrino Wireless-N 135 offers Bluetooth, and normally, Mini PCI Express cards use the PCI Express protocol for its Wi-Fi section while Bluetooth is powered by the Mini PCI Express USB pins. However, a desktop PCI Express doesn’t offer USB connectivity by itself, so we need to use the supplied USB cable and connect it to a USB 2.0 internal header on our motherboard.
The motherboard this card was installed was an ASUS Prime B350M-A/CSM, using an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X processor. I later used this card on an ASRock X570M Pro4 motherboard with an AMD Ryzen 9 3950x CPU. Windows was able to recognize the card and the drivers were downloaded from Windows Update.
We can also see the Intel Centrino Wireless-N 135 item under the Network Adapters section of the Device Manager. It works well, so if you have some unused Mini PCI Express Wi-Fi card, you should consider using one of these adapters to give it another life in your desktop machine.
You can get this adapter on Amazon at the following link:
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