Hi,

I read in the forum that replacing the WLAN Wifi Link 4965 AGN with eg. an Intel 6200N would reduce heat. X61's palmrest is simply too hot.

The post recommending the 6200N dates back a while, and i was wondering whether anyone has recently made any experiences with this issue? Is there any other WiFi card which you could recommend (to reduce the heat)?

many thanks.

I just bought the 6200N, workings great so far!

You could always take the wifi card out, and use an external PCMCIA wifi card or USB dongle.
The Intel 6200N has a newer version called 6205N. (2-wire)
The 6300N has not been changed. (3-wire)

many thanks!! I'll have a look at Intel's new one. Unless there are major improvements, I think I'll opt for the 6200N.

I simply love the screen dimension and the keyboard. Try to stick with the X61 as long as possible...

A friend of mine has my old X61 and may be interested in this to reduce heat. Do you need to run a specialized BIOS or anything for this to work? Also, did you just get a regular old 6200N from eBay or did you need to get a 6200N that had Lenovo FRU? Thanks!

Yes, If you install the 6200N into a X61, you will need a modified BIOS to get around the BIOS whitelist - I have a generic 6200N currently installed in a spare T60, works OK (with modded BIOS - OS: Win7)

Excellent, thanks. I found in the other thread referenced RBS's link to the Middleton BIOS, I'll take a look at that as well as the 1/2 height -> full height adapter bracket required.

Just got a 6200N based on this recommendation.

The WiFi LED on the bezel didn't flash in response to data transfer, which I missed. Luckily, it's a parameter of the Intel driver on Windows, just as it is on Linux: http://blog.boris-wach.de/permalink/119

Nice upgrade from the hot 4965AG!

Yep, the wireless card upgrade is definitely worth it, reduced heat, more stable, and best-of-all, better support in Linux. I've been using the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 for many months now in my X61.

With the old card, the hot-palm rest issue went away when I started using Power Saving mode in Windows 7, and I lived without a hot-palm rest for over a year. But when I moved to Linux, it was back since the equivlant mode wasn't available (as a matter of fact, power management has been completely disabled on the default X60/1 wifi card in all modern Linux kernels due to stability issues with the cards).

Network: Card-1 Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 driver iwlwifi

I replaced my 3965ABG with a Broadcom (Apple branded) BCM94321MC.

Works way better!

Do you need a special bios update or driver for the apple BCM94321MC card? I run Linux and i don't know i will handle it

I finally got round to getting an adapter and half-size card (N6200), which is now sitting in my dual boot X61.

Neither operating system can see the card, and I'm running 2.22 - 1.03 BIOS (which I'm pretty certain is the Middleton version).

Any clues? I'm struggling! :/

Hard to tell if you have a Middleton BIOS or the stock Lenovo BIOS. But, if you installed a generic card and there is no error/warning when you boot up, then you got a modified BIOS.

When I installed a 6300N in my X61, Win 7 did not recognize nor install the drivers. Which is not unusual. I did show up in device manager. On another machine I downloaded the Intel driver from Intel's website and installed it on the X61. Works great, is cooler and I swear I'm getting better battery life. Another alternative is to plug to the internet via the ethernet cable and download the drivers that way.

BTW - I would help if you specified the OS that you are running.

I'm using Win7 Pro and Linux Mint 14, both of which would normally pick up new devices. There is a cabled internet connection available in this case. I see nothing anywhere in Device Manager that points to the hardware being present. I get no error or warning on bootup regarding the BIOS or hardware compatibility (whitelist).

I'll try a manual install of the drivers but it does seem weird to me...

Edit: I got the driver-only install from Intel direct, which when run simply puts up a peculiar custom progress window, but gives me no information or messages of any kind. :/

Re-Edit: Never mind, I'm a blithering idiot... There's more than one place to enable WLAN in the BIOS. I had disabled the IO setting for it under Security in the Setup util... *sigh* Works in Win7 now, I'm assuming I'll have similar luck in Mint too. Cheers, tho.