[sidmall]

Originally Posted by JPC

I upgraded my Dell Mini Inspiron 1018 with a 1366x768 display, and installed the Broadcom Crystal HD card for HD playback of video files. The new display looks great, there is greater information density, and I prefer the matte look of the new screen over the glossy look of the old screen. Matte or glossy is a personal preference but I find the matte screen useable under different lighting situations. Playback of HD movies and 480 and 720 YouTube files look great. The only caveat on installing the Crystal HD card is that you must remove the factory wireless PCI-e mini-card to use that slot. The tradeoff was worth it to me, and I opted for a USB wireless adapter to replace the wireless card.

Instructions:

Purchase the replacement WXGA LCD from a seller like RUNPDA on Ebay. There are other worthy vendors, but RUNDPA was mentioned previously in these forums. Follow disassembly instructions for the LCD display found on YouTube or in the repair manual to remove the bezel and metal arms holding the LCD. In my case installation went smoothly, the system recognized the new display automatically, and no software adjustments or additional driver downloads were necessary. BTW, the factory 1024x600 display manufacturer on my 1018 is Samsung and the manufacturer on the 1366x768 display is LG.

Purchase the Broadcom BCM970015 card. I purchased mine from a vendor on Amazon and there are multiple vendors on Ebay. Get the "15" card and not the "12" card as the "12" card is the older version and does not support as many formats. The BCM970015 card is a mini PCI-E half-height card with a metal adapter to extend it to full height (length). Remove the two screws holding on the metal plate, as only a half-height card will fit.

Remove your battery, keyboard, palm rest assembly, and hard drive. The wireless card is secured by one screw, remove this and disconnect the two antenna wires (they pull off). Put some electrical tape over the antenna connectors so they will not short circuit anything. Insert the Crystal HD card and secure with the screw. Reassemble everything. Download the drivers from the Broadcom site.

You are still not done. Just installing the card does not ensure HD playback. Flash should work with the Crystal HD in 480 and above, but the media player software of your choice must be configured to be aware of the Crystal HD device and to use the Crystal HD codec.

Otherwise, your media player software will continue to use its internal codec and ignore the Crystal HD and you will not see HD results. I use Media Player Classic Home Cinema and PotPlayer; both are configurable to disable internal codecs and use Crystal HD instead.

Here are some other changes, some previously mentioned in this forum, which improved the performance of my Mini:

1. Upgrade RAM from 1 G to 2 G.

2. Under Performance Options select "Adjust for best performance," rather than "Adjust for best visuals," or the default "Let windows choose what's best for my computer." But turn "smooth edges of screen fonts" back on or text will look awful. You'll lose some eye candy but it is made up by zippier performance.

3. Never a fan of trackpads, I use an external wireless USB mouse. I like the Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000. The bluelight tracking even works on my pants leg or chair arm. And I set the left-side configurable button to Magnify.

I also initially replaced the factory .3M webcam with a 1.3M webcam from a Mini 1012. The part exactly fits and the connector is the same. But this swap provided only a slight, hardly visible increase in resolution. And like others on the 1012 forum have reported, low light performance is worse with the 1.3M webcam. So I removed the 1.3M and put back the original .3M webcam. That experiment cost me $5.00 by purchasing the part on Ebay. But I wanted to try it at the same time I upgraded my LCD display to minimize the number of times I disassembled and assembled my Mini.

I purchased bcm970015 and my system is not detecting it and system wont boot windows if the wifi is enabled from bios i have to disable wifi to boot. Please help