I just bought a new laptop ASUS N550JV. I wanted to test the wifi receivers of my two laptops (the old and the new), so I put them together and scanned for the neighboring wireless connections. My old laptop (Atheros AR5B93) has 10+ AP's on the list while the new laptop (Atheros AR9485WB-EG) has only 2, and the signals were substantially weaker. I gotta say any signal weaker than -75 dB won't show up on new laptop while I can list wireless connections with -90 dB on my older one.
This will cause problems in my college building, since with my old laptop I could often barely connect to the network. With the new laptop, I believe I most certainly will not be able to connect.
I first thought I would swap the wireless cards and fix this but then the root of the problem being the antennas made more sense. So, does this issue originate from the wireless network card itself or the antennas?
Edit
I want to present some screenshots: In the scenario, I have 10-15 meters and a wall between laptops and router. The red is my connection, blue and green are the common APs that the laptops can enlist, and yellows are the ones that only the old laptop can enlist.
Old Laptop
New Laptop