Thinkpads Forum

just received a T60P 15" with the Intel wifi card, which I was told by Lenovo Tech Support was the best reception available in a Lenovo config. However, the reception is only about 60%, where my X41T gets above 95% ALWAYS. this is from the exact same spot in the house, facing the same direction, etc etc. I'm surprised.

I did also confirm with Tech Support that this box, a 2613- CTO has the 3rd anttena and ready for an 802.11a/b/g/n card such as the Atheros, or whatever appears in the future. does anyone know if this will improve my reception? this is an issue because, while at school, i often have access to wifi with poor reception on my X41T... i guess this new box won't even pick it up.

or does anyone have any other suggestions?

so far i like the T60P, however. slick.

how bout a direct question, then...

i was planning on upgrading to some abgn card later on when i upgrade my home wireless network. does anyone have the opinion that i would benefit my reception to upgrade to the Atheros card now?

The Atheros cards always had better reception that intel/Centrino cards. I would just go ahead and upgrade to the a/b/g/n card if you are in a position to do so.

cheeebs, you wouldn't be running Vista on your new t60p by any chance???

steveg47, yes, vista on my 1 day old T60P, with Intel wifi card. please contribute why you bring this up. thanks.

cheeebs wrote:steveg47, yes, vista on my 1 day old T60P, with Intel wifi card. please contribute why you bring this up. thanks.

I upgraded to Vista and since alway get 60% signal strength on my Intel card. The card works fine on XP. If I connect to my router I get 60%, if I connect to another access point which shows 25% before connecting, it switches to 60% after connection. I believe this is a vista and/or wireless driver issue. I also believe the signal strength reported is erroneous and that my actually signal is ok.
I backed off the wireless driver to an older one and now access connections usually reports correctly; however the other vista icon (looks like 2 monitors in back of each other) still reports 60%. I would wait until intel releases a newer driver before purchasing another wireless card.

yes, my thinkvantage connections reports exactly 60% consistently. i'll hold off for now. still haven't tried the new box at the public wifi site. that may be a test. for now it works at home seemingly without issue, but only for a day so far. looks like there is likely a driver issue.

steveg47 wrote:

cheeebs wrote:steveg47, yes, vista on my 1 day old T60P, with Intel wifi card. please contribute why you bring this up. thanks.

I upgraded to Vista and since alway get 60% signal strength on my Intel card. The card works fine on XP. If I connect to my router I get 60%, if I connect to another access point which shows 25% before connecting, it switches to 60% after connection. I believe this is a vista and/or wireless driver issue. I also believe the signal strength reported is erroneous and that my actually signal is ok.
I backed off the wireless driver to an older one and now access connections usually reports correctly; however the other vista icon (looks like 2 monitors in back of each other) still reports 60%. I would wait until intel releases a newer driver before purchasing another wireless card.

Another drawback of moving to vista too soon. This is surely a driver issue. I suggest not to buy a new wireless card.

If you read the history of Intel driver revisions, one of the changes was to provide a more accurate indication of signal strength. Before that change the indication was much too optimistic. So, it is normal to see a lower signal strength with the new Intel drivers than with the older drivers. It does not mean that the card is less sensitive--it simply means that the measurement is more accurate. Intel may be breaking the trend. I suspect that many other vendors' drivers are traditionally rigged to show "optimistic" signal strength so they will look better in competitive comparisons when reviewers are not equipped to do actual measurements (which require some serious equipment and rather involved procedures). I never look at that as more than a vague indication anyway. Just like the bars on a cell phone.

everyone thanks for that.

can anyone suggest a software tool that can run on both my X41T and T60P that can get accurate objective info from the wifi cards? this way we can see which theory is more likely the case (whether the new drivers are less or more accurate than previous versions).

claudeo wrote:If you read the history of Intel driver revisions, one of the changes was to provide a more accurate indication of signal strength. Before that change the indication was much too optimistic. So, it is normal to see a lower signal strength with the new Intel drivers than with the older drivers. It does not mean that the card is less sensitive--it simply means that the measurement is more accurate. Intel may be breaking the trend. I suspect that many other vendors' drivers are traditionally rigged to show "optimistic" signal strength so they will look better in competitive comparisons when reviewers are not equipped to do actual measurements (which require some serious equipment and rather involved procedures). I never look at that as more than a vague indication anyway. Just like the bars on a cell phone.

Sorry, but that explanation simply doesn't cut it. The 60% signal strength is wrong. If you read my full description above that should be apparent. I would say that it's much more likely that while attempting to make the signal indicator more accurate Intel has simply screwed up and made the signal strength indicator useless!

I was also getting a much lower reception on a new t60p @ Windows XP with Intel, comparing to t43p Atheros card. The least you can do is play with power management settings in the driver, but it still won't be nearly as good.

Steve47, one word says it all: Vista.

It may take a while for things to mature...

ryengineer wrote:This is surely a driver issue.

No, its not.

Create a custom profile in Power Manager and you will be able to set the wireless power setting under the "Advanced 1" settings group to whatever value you want.

The standard default Power Manager profiles under Vista do not set wireless to maximum power and for some reason do not allow you to change the setting in edit mode. However, in a custom profile you can set wireless to maximum power, which should remediate your signal level issues in Vista and give you performance similar to a typical XP setup.

Cheers,

Bill

iatacs19 wrote:The Atheros cards always had better reception that intel/Centrino cards.

In my experience its the other way around.

Cheers,

Bill

bill bolton wrote:

ryengineer wrote:This is surely a driver issue.

No, its not.

Create a custom profile in Power Manager and you will be able to set the wireless power setting under the "Advanced 1" settings group to whatever value you want.

The standard default Power Manager profiles under Vista do not set wireless to maximum power and for some reason do not allow you to change the setting in edit mode. However, in a custom profile you can set wireless to maximum power, which should remediate your signal level issues in Vista and give you performance similar to a typical XP setup.
Cheers,

Bill

Been there, tried that, doesn't work. This problem has nothing to do with power management. As I previously stated, if I search for nearby access points and find one with say 28% signal, and I connect to it my signal will change to 60% after the connection is made. Doesn't matter what the signal strength was before connection after connection it's 60%.
There are other issues with power management and AC but this does not appear to be one of them.

why don't you try to set on access connection to put maximum performance (high power) of the card on the settings. i found on my neighborhood an access point which has 6% reception and with this high power lever i get fast speed for browsing. for sure it was unsecured that's why i got in to his network hehehe and share my experience.

creed_mty wrote:why don't you try to set on access connection to put maximum performance (high power) of the card on the settings. i found on my neighborhood an access point which has 6% reception and with this high power lever i get fast speed for browsing. for sure it was unsecured that's why i got in to his network hehehe and share my experience.

These are issues with Vista not XP.

and creed_mty, invading someones wireless lan without permission is no less dishonest then entering a strangers house uninvited just because the door was unlocked. It certainly is nothing to brag about.

steveg47 wrote:

creed_mty wrote:why don't you try to set on access connection to put maximum performance (high power) of the card on the settings. i found on my neighborhood an access point which has 6% reception and with this high power lever i get fast speed for browsing. for sure it was unsecured that's why i got in to his network hehehe and share my experience.

These are issues with Vista not XP.

and creed_mty, invading someones wireless lan without permission is no less dishonest then entering a strangers house uninvited just because the door was unlocked. It certainly is nothing to brag about.

well sorry because i did not realize that is on vista mine is xp and i understood that about invading other wireless lan i just did it with the purpose of how good is the performance since i found that wi-fi lan at 6 or 5% of reception i tried for 10 mins. i have my own wi-fi lan. even is not good to invade other lans because your still vulnerable is not secure connection.

This is the first Thinpad for me after using Dell Latitudes since 1998 and I am quite impressed.

My wireless access point in my basement and the T60 I have has no problems at all.