T43p 1802 Unauthorized Wireless Adapter

[kiwipad]

Hi
Posting this for information:

A week or so back I fired up my recently acquired (and very immaculate) T43p to be confronted with a "1802 Unauthorized Wireless Card" error at boot.

So I had seen the posts on this board about ways of getting round this with BIOS "patches" and at least one thread pointing to impending mainboard failure.

But the machine had been working quite happily since I got it and the card hadn't been changed so it's not as though I had actually put a wrong card in there.

Pulled the card and the machine started up fine.

So on the basis that everything else looked ok, I ordered a replacement card (via this forum, and kudos to ajkula66 here for pointing me to the possibility of it being a mainboard problem), deciding that for the price of a replacement card, it's got to be worth a shot.

In the meantime I ran both IBMs PC Doctor and a set of fairly brutal "burn-in"/"stress test" routines, all of which came up clean.

Replacement card arrives, plugged in, no more 1802 error.

Moral of the story being, while these machines may have their own peculiarities, (solutions to which can be found amongst the wealth of knowledge of the folk here !), don't forget to apply a bit of logic and normal fault-finding process.

One other handy hint I would add: to avoid a heart-stopping "Operating System Not Found" error once you've replaced your wireless card, do remember to plug the hard drive back in when you're bolting the machine back together

IG

(written on my T42 to avoid getting fingerprints on my pretty T43p !)

[Tekken]

I believe thats a bios hack prog out there can bypass it. Search in the forums.

[RealBlackStuff]

For everyone's benefit, which card (brand/model/FRU) went south on you, and what did you replace it with?

[kiwipad]

@Tekken - no, the point of the post was to identify the possibility that the "1802" error may be caused by a wireless adapter already installed going bad - this wasn't a newly installed card, and had been working fine. I've seen all the posts about the methods of getting around an 1802 when a non-IBM sub-id card is used but this wasn't the case.

@RealBlackStuff - the card I pulled was (as far as I'm aware) the originally installed card, an Intel 2915ABG with an FRU 27K9936. The reason I think it was the original fitting is that the case shows no signs of having been opened before I took my toolkit to it ! The replacement was another 2915ABG whose FRU I didn't note (and it's now neatly tucked up inside the machine), sorry. Of course if I had taken the time to note the FRU, I might also have remembered to re-install the hdd

Now, if I can borrow a non-TP it would be interesting to see how "broken" the old card is - just out of curosity I'd be interested to see if the problem was that it had simply failed (in which case it won't work in another machine) or if (for some reason) it just suddenly stopped being recognized as an "approved" IBM piece...in which case it may still function as a wireless adapter.

IG

[Paul Pennington]

One other (rare) possibility to consider: I bought a used T42 that gave an 1802 error when it arrived. Turned out to be a bad connection in the mini-pci socket. I nearly tore my hair out trying to make sense of the symptoms -- sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn't. I hope you don't have this problem. I finally just disabled the wireless card in the BIOS, as this one was almost always used with a wired connection. The T43's have a very common problem with the memory sockets, so the mini-pci socket is probably a possibility too.

[sjthinkpader]

The device IDs on these WiFi cards are usually written in I2C EEPROM per request of the customer, in this case Lenovo. These are very similar to SPD on SODIMM and CIS on PCCards. EEPROM like most non-volatile memories are sometimes volatile in losing a bit or two over time. When this happens then the system can't identify the card anymore.

[s01o]

Try it: http://bulfon.com/store2/no-1802.iso - burn in CD and boot - this tool clear 1802 protection!

[Voith]

Try it: http://bulfon.com/store2/no-1802.iso - burn in CD and boot - this tool clear 1802 protection!

this fix does nothing to T43 machines.

I have the same problem with my wireless card from T40.