Antenna wire connector broke off

[R0Y]

This is embarrassing. 

I’ve worked with computers, both hardware and software my entire career. I’m not intimidated by repairs, nor am I clumsy. 

Tonight I was trying to replace a wifi module in a laptop. Not a big deal. I was changing a mediatek to an Intel ax 201. The problem was I could not get the antenna wires reattached. 

I tried on and off for hours. 

The connector on one of the wires eventually broke off. 

Im dumbfounded. 

I know PCs etc, but I don’t know how to fix this, who to bring it to. Lenovo is the party I need to fix it bc the antenna wires are attached to the laptop, but they won’t fix it as I was replacing the lousy mediatek they put in the thing. 

i need out of the box thinking from people who know more about electronics than I do. 

Can I solder that one wire with the broken connector to the wifi module? That’s the one solution I can think of short of throwing this thing out. Brand new as of November too. 

Any and all help is greatly appreciated. I honestly have no idea what to do, how to approach this. I don’t even understand what I was doing wrong with connecting the wires in the first place. 

Gaming laptops are great but this shows their weakness. Something breaks the entire unit is destroyed. This is Probably a $.05 connector too. 

Thanks,

mike 

[n_scott_pearson]

Ignoring the breakage issue for now, I am actually not sure that this card is going to work for you anyway. The AX201 requires a motherboard with support for CNVio2. A motherboard that came with a MediaTek card is unlikely to support CNVio2 in this same M.2 socket. Have you tried powering on this laptop with the card installed and attempted to use it as-is? Will the driver installer even see it?

As for the breakage issue, these connectors are very delicate and you aren't the first to report this happening. Unfortunately, soldering isn't a simple matter; you would need to separately solder shield and core wire. 

Hope this helps,

...S