1.  No, there is no whitelist or blacklist. 2.  You need a half-mini PCIe card -- any that have same antenna arrangement (2-wire or 3-wire) will work. What you cannot use is the newer M.2 (aka NGFF) format -- these won't fit.  
Hello, Ive more recently been posting over on the Alienware forums, but this time I have a question about my latest acquisition. An Inspiron 17r SE 7720 (sadly not the fhd, or 3D capable version, but I have stuffed it with two 1tb ssds, and 16gb of ram, so it’s rather quick.  It has the factory installed Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230. Id like to go dual band or even dual band AC.. I have had some luck with Intel AC 7260 w/Bluetooth in the past, and was wondering if (1) Dell blacklists cards like HP does, and (2) any recommendations for cards that will improve speed. thanks in advance! -Ryan
Inspiron 17R SE 7720, Wi-Fi card upgrade