Is it safe to upgrade a 802.11b/g/n adapter to a 802.11ac?

Question

I'm thinking of replacing the old wireless network adapter on my laptop. However, I'm not sure if it's safe to do that because the antennas cannot be replaced. What if the new adapter is not compatible with existing antennas? The primary reason to this reconfiguration is to make good use of 802.11ac. Let me tell you more about my laptop and its network adapter:

1. The antennas comprise of 2 lines.
2. The exact name of my existing adapter is Realtek RTL8188CE Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC.
3. I think the whitelist does not matter because my laptop is from TOSHIBA. The exact name of my laptop is Satellite C840.

My questions are:

1. What is the difference between mini-PCIe and mini-PCI? Does it matter to me?
2. I'm thinking of buying Intel Wireless-AC 7260 Plus BlueTooth mini-PCIe. Do you think it's gonna work?

Answer 1

No, this upgrade won't work well. Your current card is 2.4GHz only, so your antennas are almost certainly tuned for 2.4GHz and probably suck at 5GHz. That's a problem because 802.11ac is 5GHz only.

Because of antenna design, slot type, and form-factor issues, not to mention potential thermal and EMI issues, upgrading a wireless card in a laptop is rarely feasible. Most people who really need to upgrade just the wireless on an old laptop should consider disabling their internal wireless card and living with a USB wireless dongle.