Thinkpads Forum

Has anyone else had trouble getting an 802.11n card to work at 300mbps. I have two T60s both with hacked Zender bios v2.26 using two different mini pci-e cards.
My Atheros 5008,AR5BX72 card operates at 300mbps in both machines. But a recently acquired Intel 3945agn card only connects at 130. They are both Toshiba branded as far as I recall. Not that this makes a difference.
Strange this . I also have a Belkin pcmcia card that only ever makes 130 too. This is perhaps not that surprising as it is a few years old.
Perhaps we can compile a list of cards that do connect at 300. Or perhaps its my router that is fickle. Its a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH.
I have similar issues with my T23s. The excellent TP-Link WN861N connects reliably at 300 but my dual band Broadcom BCM4321 never transmits at more that 130.

There is no 3945 card capable of wifi-N.
You probably mean the 4965AGN.
Perhaps you installed the wrong drivers?

And you also probably mean BCM43241.
Same driver problem?

It would greatly help if we get accurate information.

The 4965AGN is working great at 300Mbps on my T61p with stock bios.

4965agn here and only 144mbs wlan.

RealBlackStuff wrote:There is no 3945 card capable of wifi-N.
You probably mean the 4965AGN.
Perhaps you installed the wrong drivers?

Yes you are absolutely right RBS as usual. Its a 4965agn.I am guilty of sloppy posting.
I am using the latest level of drivers: 13.4.0.139. These were obtained from the Lenovo site.
To rule out the drivers I uninstalled and deleted the existing drivers and then installed the generic drivers from Intel. These show a later level of package:14.3.0.6 but installed exactly the same drivers:13.4.0.139. Perversely it then connected at 104 ! So I then went back to the original setup and now enjoy 130 connection speeds.

As regards the other card Broadcom 4321 in the T23. The chip is marked with that number and the driver does not actually identify the model number. Anyway I decided to go into the advanced settings in the device manager driver. I found that if I changed the 'Bandwidth Capability' setting from 20 to 20/40 then I connected at 270 which is good enough for me.

So this leaves me with a T23 problem solved and the T60 still unresolved. I have looked at the Intel advanced properties. All these are set at what should logically give me a 40mhz connection.

I see that immortal_suby gets the full speed so it is possible. I wonder if this is due to a branded Lenovo card being used.

JBUK wrote: I see that immortal_suby gets the full speed so it is possible. I wonder if this is due to a branded Lenovo card being used.

Mine is a branded 3 antenna lenovo card.

JBUK wrote:Or perhaps its my router that is fickle. Its a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH.

That router is compliant only with the earliest 802.11n draft spec and operates solely in the 2.4GHz WiFi band, which is why your Intel 4965 card wont do more than 130Mbps with it.

From the 802.11n draft 2 spec onwards "bonded channel" operation in the 2.4GHz WiFi band has been strongly discouraged, as it it is very anti-social for other 802.11bg WiFi users in the vicinity. Your Intel 4965 card is draft 2compliant, while your Atheros card isn't draft 2 compliant.

Its your call what you do, but I strongly advise that its time to ditch any router that isn't fully compliant with the final 802.11n specification, which has been out for a while now, and get a new router that is capable of simultaneous dual band (2.4Ghz and 5GHz WiFi band) operation. That will allow you to get straightforward 300Mbps connections from both Intel and Atheros cards using the 5GHz WiFi band.

Cheers,

Bill B.

I have the same exact router and an intel 4965agn (same as that of OP's) on my T60. I was connecting at 130mbps before I upgraded the firmware to it's newest one just a few days ago. It's now connecting at 300mbps all around the house. IIRC the firmware is 1.79 and I upgraded from the browser utility.

This a bit off topic but if you have not seen this piece of open source software it is pretty cool to let you see wireless signals in your area. I have a lot of signals in my neighborhood so wanted to pick a channel with the least interference. It shows strength, max rate, channel. The software is inSSIDer http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

My Linksys E3200 is showing a max speed of 144mbps on the 2.4Ghz band and 300 on the 5 Ghz.

Bruce

brucehe wrote:This a bit off topic but if you have not seen this piece of open source software it is pretty cool to let you see wireless signals in your area. I have a lot of signals in my neighborhood so wanted to pick a channel with the least interference. It shows strength, max rate, channel. The software is inSSIDer http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

My Linksys E3200 is showing a max speed of 144mbps on the 2.4Ghz band and 300 on the 5 Ghz.

Bruce

Great tool. Thanks!

Hello,

I just installed an Intel 6200n half size card into my T60p and it connects at 300mbps depending on distance to the router. The speed varies as my distances increases but still stays between 100-280 mbps. I installed a modded BIOS so it would accept this card. I have a 5300n card coming for my X60 and will be interested to see if there is any difference in speed or access. The 6200n has two antenna connections and the 5300n three.

Bruce