Change 2200bg to Atheros WiFi - must Flash Bios?

[parangles]

I think the last time I flashed the Bios it was the root cause of my
current heart problems 5 years later .
I have played around with a problem Intel 2200bg for a long time
but given up. Rather than replace the 2200 I want to
change it to Atheros which is on the other T42 I have,
so that I can seamlessly switch HDDs if there is any problem with
one of the T42s. Do I have to update the BIOS? and is there some
cardiac arrest free program to do that ? Thanks !!

[ajkula66]

Presuming the Atheros card is an IBM-issued one, just plug & play, and install the appropriate driver, of course.

[parangles]

I have been unable to identify which Atheros cards were used by IBM.
For my model T42 2373, in the Lenovo list of cards used, it names Cisco and
Intel, but the others ( none) are not identified as Atheros by name.
The Lenovo support documentation is extensive but instructions to " insert high density
floppy disc " etc in their Bios update instructions is what makes me fearful
of attempting it.

[ajkula66]

Atheros = IBM or ThinkPad cards, show as b/g, a/b, a/b/g in the driver download list...

The latest driver - presuming you're running XP:

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... MIGR-67214

[loyukfai]

You're switching a Wi-Fi adapter from one ThinkPad T42 to another ThinkPad T42, right? Presuming that the original T42 didn't have a modded-BIOS, it should work just fine.

You can switch the card, then connect to Internet using a LAN cable, and run System Update to let it pull the driver for you.

Switching HDD could be a little bit more complicated, but from one T42 to another T42 it should be (mostly) okay.

Cheers.

[parangles]

ajkula66 : Thanks , that driver seems to have worked ok. Didn't need to update the bios.
I am getting an ' IP conflict' message because I am running two T42's, one of which is using a cloned hard drive of the other one, hence I guess the OS is getting confused . No problem -I dont intend using them both simultaneously. The wireless works fine when the other one is shut off.

loyukfai: I always have two of the same model laptop with cloned drives so that I'll never get in
trouble again. I keep them in sync. One had an Intel wireless card that was giving problems.
I changed it to the same Atheros as the other one. All is well . Thanks !

" so soon so old, so late so smart "

[redrock]

Your IP conflict is a network issue. Probably not specific to the OS of your cloned configuration.

It would be unlikely that both WIFI cards would have the same MAC address.

So your problem is probably solved doing a ipconfig /renew at the command prompt.

or less likely you have a static IP configuration (the same) on both PC's. In that case change one of them.

Here is an example of how to change a static IP (for windows 7 but similar for others). http://blog.mclaughlinsoftware.com/2009 ... static-ip/

enjoy...