Wireless N card for T60

[Muse]

The T60 I have had since 2006 has Integrated WiFi wireless LAN[] Integrated Wi-Fi Wireless a/b/g. I'm finding that grabbing data wirelessly can be very slow. Even my T61 with wireless N has faster wireless although my router is not N. I'm shopping for a wireless N router (maybe the ASUS RT-N66U Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router), however. I want to get a wireless N network card for the T60:

Lenovo T60
1953CTO ThinkPad T Series T60
Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5500
Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit
14.1 SXGA+ TFT (Displaying to 23" and 19" LCDs by virtue of model 2504 mini dock)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
3 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory
Intel 330 180GB SSD
CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo 24X/24X/24X/8X Max, Ultrabay Slim
ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wi-Fi wireless LAN Mini-PCIe
6 cell Li-Ion Battery

What am I looking for? Someone said I could find a wireless N card for ~$20 on ebay. I don't know what to look for. Ideas/suggestions/caveats appreciated!

[ajkula66]

If you don't want to hack the BIOS, you're looking for FRU 42T0825 or 42T0827 which is Lenovo (Atheros) a/b/g/n card.

With Zender's BIOS, the world is your oyster...

[Muse]

If you don't want to hack the BIOS, you're looking for FRU 42T0825 or 42T0827 which is Lenovo (Atheros) a/b/g/n card.

With Zender's BIOS, the world is your oyster...

I have flashed BIOS of various computers several times. It does not scare me, never been burned. Is there any reason to not want to flash Zender's BIOS? Where can I get it??? Thank you!

Um, why do you use the word "hack" in this context? Don't you just mean flash that BIOS? Uh, with Zender's BIOS I can install just any old wireless N PCI-e and get good results?
- - - -
Edit: Well, I'm sure I could do it, but figured I'd look at ebay and I saw an FRU 42T0825 selling for ~$20 and bought it. There may be other advantages to Zender's BIOS, however I figure this isn't a bad option in any case. Info appreciated...

[ajkula66]

Yeah, "hack" was referring to installing a modded BIOS.

All ThinkPads in my household have their BIOS modded on some level...

With that said, I love the card that you just bought. Hopefully you will as well.

[DeDragonSlayer]

Muse, the ASUS RT-N66U you're considering works nicely with an Intel Ultimate-N 6300 wireless card. I'm getting a stable 450 mbit connection with that combo, when in the same room. I have a T61p, though. It's a really nice router, especially with Merlin's custom firmware.

Don't know what the Lenovo FRU for the Intel wireless card is, I got it on eBay from the Far East. It needs three antennas to get up to that speed. The first one I got was defective, freezing the computer during sustained transfer. The second one has been working fine for a few years now.

However, I have no experience with newer Atheros cards, such as suggested by ajkula66, so consider my advice a bit one-sided.

[Muse]

I received the Atheros wireless N card and ordered the Asus RT-N66U router (actually the N66R, a factory refurb off ebay). I just installed the wireless N card. Couple of questions:

1. The card has an extra connector on it, in between where the 2 connectors are on the a/b/g Atheros card that was in there. Do I simply ignore that central connector? What is its function?

2. Do I want/need to download and install a different (set of) driver(s) for the wireless N card? Haven't hooked up the machine yet.

Edit: Well, I connected the machine to my miniport and on starting, it froze at the THINKPAD splash screen. Restarting did the same thing twice. That screen says to hit the blue Thinkvantage button to stop normal start. I did that and it started normally. Wha? However, a message said that there was difficulty gaining the driver for the card, and I supposed that if I started the machine with it connected by ethernet to my router, a download and install of the needed driver would happen naturally. I did that and got no message about a driver, checked in Device Manager and the card is there and "working properly" with the 2.0.0.75 Atheros driver. However, disconnecting the ethernet cable I get no internet connectivity or connection to my network. There's also a device under Network adapters called Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter #2, don't know what that's about.

Of course, I don't have my Asus RT-N66R wireless N router yet, but I figure this should work with my current Buffalo router. What could be wrong?

[dr_st]

1) Third antenna to improve signal strength. If you don't have it, no biggie.
2) Maybe. I would start with getting the most updated driver for your card from the manufacturer's site.

[Muse]

1) Third antenna to improve signal strength. If you don't have it, no biggie.
2) Maybe. I would start with getting the most updated driver for your card from the manufacturer's site.

Please see the edit I just made to my previous post. Thanks. Maybe installing the "latest" driver for the card will improve things, but right now although Windows 7 thinks the card is working properly I'm getting no discernible network connection when wireless.

Edit: Actually now I'm wondering if I have the connectors on the wrong spots on the card. This thread suggests that possibility in the OP:

http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... 9&t=101495

[ajkula66]

The middle one should be open.

Gray to the left and black to the right.

Good luck.

[Muse]

The middle one should be open.

Gray to the left and black to the right.

Good luck.

Well, I should have taken pictures. What I did do was watch the Lenovo videos for removal and replacement of the card, which just had two connectors. I put the cables onto the corresponding corners of the Atheros wireless N card. The colors, I'm not aware of. Maybe it's reversed somehow. I gather from the thread in the link in my last post that there are designating symbols on the card, and I'll have to open up the machine in order to see those. I figure there's something I can do to get it working. The Wireless N router just arrived this afternoon, it's still in its box. It's a heatwave now, so don't know if I'll get on this stuff right now. Thanks for the help.

[Muse]

Success!!!

I wondered if I might have to reestablish my credentials on my network. After some wrangling and little was functioning, I proceeded to reboot, but before I could, the local wireless network list appeared (it wouldn't before) and I logged into my network successfully.

Question: Might it be worthwhile to use the 3rd antenna connection on the Atheros wireless N card?

[ajkula66]

Question: Might it be worthwhile use the 3rd antenna connection on the Atheros wireless N card?

What transfer speeds are you getting right now?

[Muse]

Question: Might it be worthwhile use the 3rd antenna connection on the Atheros wireless N card?

What transfer speeds are you getting right now?

I'm right now copying a 507MB file (wirelessly) from the 2TB USB HD that's attached to another T60, which is ethernet connected to my Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 802.11b/g wireless router. Looks like it's going to be close to 5.5 minutes total. I'll edit this with the _exact_ time when it's finished in a minute or so...

I likely won't have my wireless N router installed until tomorrow.

The transfer took exactly 5 minutes, so the current transfer rate is 100MB/minute. Is that good or bad or what...? BTW, at the moment the machine is about 4 feet from the router. Its typical position is ~40 feet away, on the first floor, whereas the router is upstairs.

Edit: In its customary location, ~40 feet away from the router and one floor down the same transfer took 6:36, so around 77MB/minute.

[Muse]

I've installed the FRU # 42T0825 Atheros AR5BXB72 802.11n Wireless Mini Express card in my T60, got my Asus RT-N66R set up. My T61, which came with wireless N is getting ~9x the transfer speed. The 105MB file that took 71 seconds to transfer using my old Buffalo router took ~12 seconds today.

I went to connect the T60 to the network and didn't see the 5ghz band in the list of available networks. I went into Control Panel, hit a couple of things and suddenly it showed up. I connected and did the same file transfer of the 105MB file. That transfer took 65 seconds using my old Buffalo router, but it was not all that much faster using the 5ghz band of the new Asus router, about 48 seconds. Tried it again and it was 38 seconds. Now, the T60 is further away from the router than the T61, about twice as far and it's on a different floor, which the T61 is not. The T61 is about 30 feet from the router, the T60 is around 50 feet away. Is this much reduction in transfer speed to be expected? Would getting the 3rd antenna for the Atheros card be likely to help this materially? Would that be easy to do?

[Muse]

Whoa! Around 15 minutes after posting the above post, I went to do something on the network (a google search in Palemoon), and I had no connection. I hadn't turned off the T60 or put it to sleep. I tried to troubleshoot the problem and got nowhere. I checked my cell phone, it was still connected to the 2.4ghz band, checked the T61 and it was still connected to the 5ghz band. Rechecked the T60, it wasn't connected but a bit of trying and it was connected again. What does this portend?

[cacophony]

I just installed the recommended FRU 42T0825 in my T60p and it couldn't have gone more smoothly. Windows automatically installed the needed driver after booting and now I'm getting ~80Mbps down, which is much better than before when it capped out at about 20Mbps. Thanks!

[Muse]

At the moment, I'm unable to connect to the 5Ghz band, just the 2.4Ghz band, both projected from my Asus RT-N66R wireless N router. According to post further up this thread I was able to before. I have the IBM FRU # 42T0825 Atheros AR5BXB72 802.11n Wireless Mini Express card in this, a T60 running Windows 7 32 bit. What can I try to restore the ability to use the 5Ghz band?

[ajkula66]

At the moment, I'm unable to connect to the 5Ghz band, just the 2.4Ghz band, both projected from my Asus RT-N66R wireless N router. According to post further up this thread I was able to before. I have the IBM FRU # 42T0825 Atheros AR5BXB72 802.11n Wireless Mini Express card in this, a T60 running Windows 7 32 bit. What can I try to restore the ability to use the 5Ghz band?

I'd log into the router first and check the settings. If the issue is not resolved there, go to the properties of the wireless card itself and report what you find there...

Good luck.