Thinkpads Forum

I just got my IBM ABGN card powered by an Atheros chip from member kimo and boy oh boy is this card good.

I used get <50% signal in my house from the AP unless I was right next to my AP. Now with this card set to Max Battery save and Transmit power at 10% I'm getting 100% wherever I go.

I used to have an Asus Laptop with an Atheros card and I would be able to see my AP and 3 others in my area. With the card at Max strength I can now see 5 APs including my own.

My Thinkpad came with WWAN, what I did was I used the 2 stock WLAN antennas and then I used the plug for the "bulge" antenna from my WWAN and it works just fine. Using Mobile Meter to gage power usage I can't see any increase at all.

I recommend everyone who has an Intel ABG 3945 Wifi card to drop it and get one of these. This is one of the best upgrades you can give your Thinkpad.

I remember a lot of people on the Dell forums on notebookforums.com buying Atheros cards to replace Intel cards for the Inspiron 9x00 & XPS laptops.

You'd think Intel would get it right after all these years.

This Atheros is even better than the old ones. If anything has to choose between the Intel card or this one. Get this one, there's no question it's way better.

I got the intel card on my T60 (could not get IBM since bought via my school). I changed to the Atheors card as soon as I could, it simply rocks - very stable connections and much improved reception compared to the intel one. I have not had any heat issues whatsoever with it (though I hear that it is a problem on the X6x series), and I very strongly suggest using it over the 3945 card anyday.

How much do those typically cost? A link would be nice.

Where are the AtherosABGN cards available? I ordered a T61p and it came with the IntelABGN card.

How difficult is it to exchange them?

Thanks.

tebore wrote:This Atheros is even better than the old ones. If anything has to choose between the Intel card or this one. Get this one, there's no question it's way better.

One thing worth noting is that the improved wireless performance comes at a cost: higher power consumption. This will somewhat reduce battery life and (at least on an X6 series ThinkPad) make it run hotter.

I have a 4965AGN on the new X61, and while I was very happy with the Atheros abg in my old X31, I have no regrets about getting Intel this time.

tebore wrote:You'd think Intel would get it right after all these years.

Since you are comparing an Intel ABG card to an Atheros ABGN card, you haven't really provided anything except your opinion that they haven't.

In general ABGN products from all vendors deliver better performance than ABG products.

Cheers,

Bill B.

Oh [censored], the Atheros cards aren't holy..

Why should I choose a Atheros instead of the Intel 4965 ABGN? I just have a new T61 and I was happy that the Intel was in the pre-configed models. Why should I get a card what runs hotter? I still have wifi connection when I walk down the street. It's lost when I am half in the next street.

Haven't seen a single connection problem yet. My BF2 account fills our clanserver. I checked yesterday: 54 hours in server, not a single second of lost connection!

I've used a 2100BG 2200BG, 3945ABG and they ALL pale in comparison. So don't pretend that I haven't use Intel cards before. The Intel cards got better compared to past generations but they still haven't gotten it right.

When I compare the 3945 to the Atheros using Netstumbler and I got 30dbi with the 3945 showing 56% signal strength with periodic disconnects. Using the Atheros i got 46dbi and 100% with faster connectivity and no disconnects. Going from 30dbi to 46dbi is more than a doubling in signal strength.

For those who decided to ignore the first post. I said I noticed no noticeable increase in power consumption. TPFancontrol shows no noticeable increase in temps either.

Whether or not the Intel sensitivity is sufficient depends on each person's environment and requirements. It may not be enough for you, but for many others the Intel card is working fine.

As for the heat, you can see some actual measurements at the link below. And heat is power ... that's where the watts go ...
http://forum.netbookreview.com/showthread.php?t=141896

tebore wrote:I've used a 2100BG 2200BG, 3945ABG and they ALL pale in comparison.

More to the point, have you used an Intel 4965ABGN card?

Cheers,

Bill B.

Actually I have. On a recent T61. While better than the 3945, it's still worse than the Atheros. How do I know this you may ask.

Next to said T61 was another T61 with an Lenovo ABGN. The signal on the Lenovo card was 100% the one on the T61 was showing 63%.

My Thinkpad T60p only has two antennas (and no WWAN). Do I need to install a 3rd antenna to use 802.11n?

The displayed signal level is a pure marketing number. It has no meaning across different wireless cards and when comparing different vendors. It is a common trick to make the signal level artificially large because that makes the uninitated happy.

Same thing with cell phones - I heard of firmware "upgrades" that did nothing but increase the number of bars (at the same signal level), and it made the testers happy.

How can you explain the different numbers in Netstumbler?

I just noticed another upside for using Atheros.

My pagefile use is down 200megs to 569mb instead of 769mb and my free RAM is up to 1.3gigs instead of 1.15gigs.

While I agree that the displayed signal strength value can be (and has been) altered to interprit the RSSI values differently, every Intel card has lower signal capability that the equivalent Atheros card.

It really does annoy me how almost all pre configured ThinkPads come with the Intel card - its for 2 reasons, good Centrino marketing and 'incentives' from Intel.

Atheros chips has always been good, however Intel's new 4965AGN card is a big improvement over it's predecessor.

tebore wrote:How can you explain the different numbers in Netstumbler?

So both T61s had Netstumbler installed then?

Cheers,

Bill B.

It's ok Bill if you wanna keep hugging your Intel card you do that.

I'm just sharing my experience between Intel and Atheros cards. If you want to hold cover your ears and go "lalalalala" you do that. My evidence shows the Atheros card is superior in everyway.

tebore wrote:I just noticed another upside for using Atheros.
My pagefile use is down 200megs to 569mb instead of 769mb and my free RAM is up to 1.3gigs instead of 1.15gigs.

Whoa, I didn't know that the atheros card came with 200 MB ram. That must be the explanation why it runs so hot. Now excuse me while I'll install two atheros cards just to increase my available ram to 4.4 GB

tebore wrote:I'm just sharing my experience between Intel and Atheros cards. If you want to hold cover your ears and go "lalalalala" you do that. My evidence shows the Atheros card is superior in everyway.

Could you please post your temperature measurements?

I am so surprised that this debate is still going on. It's been known since the T40 days that the IBM (non-intel) WiFi cards were always better (do a search on the T4x forum). I'll always choose the Atheros chipset over the Intel ones any day. However, I have never investigated the heat issue (if there is one). Performance wise the Atheros wins hands down.

I just have TP fancontrol to check the temps. Since installing the card and going on with my normal usage I haven't noticed that the temps are any higher.

The bit about Memory usage is that that Intel for some reason uses about 300megs of memory between pagefile and RAM. After uninstalling the drivers for the intel card my number went to where they are above. When I got my T60p I always wondered why my PF was nearly 800megs when my old laptop was around 500megs and both had the same applications with the T60p having some of the Lenovo apps. After start up my machine would sit at 1.15gigs of free memory and now it's sitting at 1.3gigs free. So getting the Atheros card is like getting a 400meg RAM upgrade.

tebore wrote:If you want to hold cover your ears and go "lalalalala" you do that.

Watch the attitude.

tebore wrote:I just have TP fancontrol to check the temps. Since installing the card and going on with my normal usage I haven't noticed that the temps are any higher.

All right, so there really isn't any "evidence" that the Atheros is "superior in every way" as far as the temperature goes.

tebore wrote: If you want to hold cover your ears and go "lalalalala" you do that.

So, its a definite no as far as doing a comparision on NetStumbler levels on those T61s!

Cheers,

Bill B.

No I didn't they were just sitting there on display accounts locked down.

I stand by what I said. The Atheros is way better than the Intel. For you nay sayers you can stand by what you say with 0 proof. But I have proof that MY laptop didn't heat up, it didn't lose battery life and the reception was better. Even if I wasn't comparing the Intel AGN card directly I did compare the 3945 directly, and there was clearly an improvement.

Besides what do I have to gain for advertising for the Atheros card? I'm just sharing the positive experience I'm going through.

For the comment made on my attitude. Don't judge me unless you can judge yourself. Bill you're the one whose is completely stubborn about it and taking a tone with me. All I did was take the same tone.

You guys with the feathers are quick to defend him because he runs the forum. Fine by me. Ban me I'll share my experiences else where.

No, he asked you a question, and you talked around it... showing that you don't have actual measurements.