Thinkpads Forum

I've been reading thru these forums concerning the minipci wifi cards and decided to order a 73p4301 abg adapterll from IBM. Upon calling them, they could not match the FRU I had from the IBM website, transferred me to tech support, who was less knowledgeable than the sales person I spoke with. I called back again to sales and was told to just order online and see if that part no. really existed and was in stock. I received a confirmed shipping email this evening, so I'll wait and see. I want to install it in a r40 2681 that is wifi ready. I have another r40 centrino with the intel that works flawlessly. Has anyone used this card in an r40 sucessfully with the no 1802 fix? Couldn't find any info on that here.

I don't believe it will work. (Can't speak to the post-1802 fix question) You need 31P9701 for the R40. If you're going to try it anyway, try updating your bios before installing the card.

Update
Got the new wifi card this morning. Installed the card and installed the drivers from the supplied ibm disk. To my surprise I didn't have to use the 1802 fix at all. The card works perfectly even though my model is not listed as a match and also the antenna indicator on the lcd bezel works as well. It seems to have much greater range than the Intel card in my other r40 centrino. It picks up neighbors from inside my house that the centrino didn't. Only used 802b so far.
Hurray for IBM!
Hope this helps anyone who is as leary about the compatability as I was.

I was also concerned with compatibitily. I was glad to read your experience and decided to also order a 73p4301 abg adapterll from IBM also for my R40 2896. First I installed the drivers and then put in the card; then the computer produced an error: "1802:Unauthorized network card is plugged in- power off and remove mini PCI network card"

Did I do something wrong? How can I fix this? Any help is much appreciated. Tks.

volts wrote:I was also concerned with compatibitily. I was glad to read your experience and decided to also order a 73p4301 abg adapterll from IBM also for my R40 2896. First I installed the drivers and then put in the card; then the computer produced an error: "1802:Unauthorized network card is plugged in- power off and remove mini PCI network card"

Did I do something wrong? How can I fix this? Any help is much appreciated. Tks.

that's the 1802 error. IBM disabled, in the BIOS, any wifi cards not made by themselves. the abg card was made after your R40 (?), so wasn;t authorized at that time.

search the forums for the "no-1802" file, take out the card, run the file (from windows), and then the card will work

Thanks bplaut. I did some research and read on another forum that you need to create a boot CD? and run it through DOS? However, you indicate that it can be run from windows?

If it can be run from windows, I can just burn it on a CD and run it; but, if a boot CD is required and run from DOS, can you give step by step instuctions. Please note that I am a computer amateur.

Thanks again.