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For sale or trade: Mini PCI Atheros B/G/"N" card

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:49 pm
by SaberX
I bought this card from e-bay.
E-bay page click here

Bought it for a T41.It worked great for few days then the T41 started locking up.I thought it may be the video chip problem that the T4x systems have.
I then took out the Atheros "N" card and things seem to be fine again.
Read here..http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 309#445309
I dont think i had the drivers and settings set up right.Because the card work great and very fast.Just locked up a few times on boot up.

This card needs the no-1802 bios trick to work.

I'm sure the card works fine if some one can find the correct drivers and some setting done right with it.
I wouldent offer it up if i thought there was a problem with the card.

I'm looking to trade this Atheros B/G/N MiniPCI card for a IBM Intel B/G or A/B/G card.One that will work in thinkpads with out the no-1802 trick.
Looking for even trade or sell the card for $35.00usd.
I'll also toss in a short wi-fi/bluetooth antenna that i used for the 3rd antenna.Worked great.

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:14 pm
by gongo2k1
hmm, that looks like it belongs in a wifi access point/router, not in a laptop. that would explain difficulties with getting the right driver.

i'll do some research over the weekend since i might be interested... it seems like it's not just 2.4/5ghz band, but has dual radio for simultaneous 2.4ghz n and 5ghz n!

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 3:56 pm
by SaberX
gongo2k1 wrote:hmm, that looks like it belongs in a wifi access point/router, not in a laptop. that would explain difficulties with getting the right driver.

i'll do some research over the weekend since i might be interested... it seems like it's not just 2.4/5ghz band, but has dual radio for simultaneous 2.4ghz n and 5ghz n!
Is that right? That a wireless router used a MiniPCI cards?
That dont seem right.But i dont know.First i herd of this....

Heres the model #'s on it...
AP ID: 001ff3c01c51
Model: AR5BMB-0072TA
M/O: 5100011848 03

Here is the #'s on the chip itself...
Atheros
AR5416-AC1A
VL5019.1C
0815
CHINA

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:45 pm
by spuddog
P.M. sent

Scott

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 5:01 pm
by SaberX
spuddog wrote:P.M. sent

Scott
nothing came through yet....
click on the e-mail link below if it's better ...

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 5:15 pm
by gongo2k1
sure they do, cisco wifi aps have been doing this for years. it's an easy way to keep the hardware in place once it's installed, and then later upgrade the internals.

that's why when you look this card up (which the ebay listing says its the 207gn, but the specs listed are for the 199n) on sparklan's site, you'll see all sorts of stuff about licensing for the drivers and such. it's because the drivers are built for routers.

look it up on the atheros web site, you'll see that this card was meant for access points. the drivers don't have much in the way of power management (since it should always run at full power from the wall) and as far as i can tell, the drivers haven't implemented rf_kill for linux yet.

this is one of the main reasons why i went with the ralink card, it seems to be targeted more at the consumer.

that's not to say that this card can't be used for an end user, apparently the chipset was used in some dlink adapters, but it seems to have been designed as more of a commercial/network infrastructure solution than anything else.

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:01 pm
by aaa
I actually have a router that uses minipci, many older routers did this (like the original WRT54G v1).

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:23 pm
by SaberX
I did not know this.
So if you had one of those routers that uses the MiniPCI cards , say it was just a "B" or B/G router.Could you install this N card i have in it to upgrade it?
I guess i should start a new topic for this....

I have e-mailed the e-bay seller to see if other people had this problem.See what he says i guess....

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:43 pm
by spuddog
Sent you another P.M. to clarify the first, that I assume you didn't get.

Scott

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:45 pm
by SaberX
spuddog wrote:Sent you another P.M. to clarify the first, that I assume you didn't get.

Scott
No problem.....
I just got the one PM saying you dident need the card.first one dident come through.

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:52 pm
by gongo2k1
SaberX wrote:So if you had one of those routers that uses the MiniPCI cards , say it was just a "B" or B/G router.Could you install this N card i have in it to upgrade it?
not quite. you'll need a firmware upgrade for the router to use it. many routers are running some form of busybox that's been customized by the vendor to provide certain features. you'd need to compile in a new kernel module for the wifi card, generate a new firmware image (it's more or less like a compressed initrd image using squashfs) and then upload that firmware to the router. not a trivial task by any measure.

as you can probably tell, i've never tried to hack my routers before... :wink:

Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 7:18 am
by SaberX
This post can be locked up. The e-bay seller is giving refund.
So it's going back to China.