Thinkpads Forum

First road trip with T60p and X41T yeilds the following signal strength at the Madison, GA. Howard Johnson Motel..

T60p = 8%
X41T = 33%

measurments taken while each is sitting next to the other..

the HoJo fails the acceptability test..
they should just shorten the name to the "Ho Motel" if the cleanliness and habilability is any indicator, not to mention the crummy wifi..

BillMorrow wrote:First road trip with T60p and X41T yeilds the following signal strength at the Madison, GA. Howard Johnson Motel..

T60p = 8%
X41T = 33%

measurments taken while each is sitting next to the other..

the HoJo fails the acceptability test..
they should just shorten the name to the "Ho Motel" if the cleanliness and habilability is any indicator, not to mention the crummy wifi..

It's a bit hard to test the two machines comparably. How were the transfer rates etc?

Without both having the same card.. which I assume they didn't. Without both having the same driver version, version of access connections.. power management etc a fair comparison can't be made.

Power Management.. access connections, and driver can all be a cause of the difference in signal strength as I pointed out.

are you using Atheros cards on both machines? did you try using them at different times? I've found a few machines where the signal is affected if I put the two machines close enough.

That is not good. Hope you can come up with some explanation. Have you got the WWAN going. I am considering it but wonder about speed!

Hurry and get my T60P in and shipped! <vbg>

FWIW, that "test" was never intended to be anything more than just a report..

later, i upgraded my X60s and the same T60p to the atheros wifi cards..
and what had been 40% to 60% with the occasional brief jump to 80% is now 100%..
both thinkpads side by side in the same place..

just take it FWIW..

I have seen the same increase in signal strength on Atheros cards, but I can't say that I've seen a corresponsing jump in download speeds, which makes me think that Atheros is just reporting a higher number.

on the other hand, I'm able to access AP's with an atheros card that I could never even see with an Intel card, so something is clearly working better on the atheros.

My T30 Intel 21003B and T42 Intel 2200BG both have better range than my T60 Intel 3945ABG, hopefully there will be an upgrade soon to even this out.

This is just sitting them side by side at the house, I have had my T60 on the road and can connect to various points with no problems, so it's not really a huge deal.

BillMorrow wrote: T60p = 8%
X41T = 33%

I had just the opposite experience traveling last week with my X41t and T60p. At one place we stayed, the X41t would not hold a wireless signal at all, while the T60p did fine.

I tried turning on only one machine at a time, put them in various locations in the room, etc. The T60p was consistently the much better of the two.

Both machines have Intel cards, a 2915ABG in the X41t and a 3945ABG in the T60p.