Thinkpads Forum

All my searching has brought me here. I have a T60p and I just purchased an Intel 4965 card to replace the 3945 card. Of course not knowing anything about good old IBM/Lenovo's trickery... I mean bios whitelisted device crap, I obviously get the good old "Not approved" error.

I bought the 4965 because I looked on IBMs site and saw that they have drivers for said card and that to me would specify support for the card, Didn't know at the time that it had to be an IBM specific card. Can you say... STUPID...

Anyhoo... Any way I can get that modified bios/app/whatever you got working for the T60p, Zender?

And on a side note, really apprietiate everything everyone does. Gets things like this fixed. (Even tho it should of never needed it)

ADMIN EDIT:
(sorry, i just saw this and had to reply inline, here)
its not ibm or lenovo..
it is the FCC and their type approval process..
so, if you want to blame someone, blame the FCC..

Does anybody have the zender bios for download?

i tried to update the bios but i keep getting an error from the cd during the process:

cd driver not found etc etc.

what should i do?

i use an external usb dvd drive from LG that works ok for booting other things (like Vista, ubuntu, recovery etc)

Anyone with X200/Txxx/Wxxx/Rxxx willing to try patched BIOS?

Zender, I sent you an PM.

Admin Edit: That's all anyone needs to do to ask for a copy of a BIOS. Zender will respond as his time permits. There no need, or point, in repeating the message in the forum and any further such messages will simply be deleted.

Hi all

Zender, as many others I PM'ed you to get TP modded BIOS v2.21 for my T60.

If anyone got it, as I guess Zender may surely be very busy with these download requests, don't hesitate to send me a copy

laresene (at) hotmail (dot) com

This is great work, Zender, I hope any thinkpad owner could benefit your "unlock".

Hey,

Zender, your bios rocks I am running a Intel Wifi Link 5300 right now and it works perfectly in my T60p. Btw, I also do NOT experience any driver issues or bluescreens, as some stated before. No problems at all ..... thanks again zender.

Edit: btw, I also installed the official 3rd WLAN antenna for my 15" T60p, took a bit of time but in the end it worked out fine. Anyone looking into doing that feel free to ask any questions.

boba

Larsen83 wrote:Hi all

Zender, as many others I PM'ed you to get TP modded BIOS v2.21 for my T60.

If anyone got it, as I guess Zender may surely be very busy with these download requests, don't hesitate to send me a copy

laresene (at) hotmail (dot) com

This is great work, Zender, I hope any thinkpad owner could benefit your "unlock".

Mail sent man ... enjoy

boba23 wrote:
Mail sent man ... enjoy

Thanks boba

Zender gave me the download link very quickly, I'm now running a Gigabyte WI02 wifi card very smoothly, after flashing 2.23 version of Zender's modded BIOS.

His patch works like a charm, I'll advertise it !

X200 done and works, no bricks. My thanks to bencrox for testing.

To sum up what has been patched until now. BIOSes to avoid errors 1802, 1804, 1805 exist for these machines:

ThinkPad R32
ThinkPad R52
ThinkPad R60
ThinkPad R61 (hopefully all variants... there are at least four different BIOSes)
ThinkPad T400
ThinkPad T43
ThinkPad T500
ThinkPad T60
ThinkPad T61
ThinkPad X200
ThinkPad X200 T
ThinkPad X300
ThinkPad X301
ThinkPad X41
ThinkPad X60
ThinkPad X60 T
ThinkPad X61
ThinkPad X61 T
ThinkPad Z60
ThinkPad Z61

Lenovo 3000 V200

I have automated the process for older (non-X200/Txxx/Wxxx) machines, but it's glued together with PHP script, which isn't very straightforward to get running. I still hope I'll find time to document the process.
I have also written tool to split new BIOS structure, however dumb it is, it works for this purpose.

edit: added Z61
edit2: added T400, T500, X200T, X301; automation now also works for the new ones

boba23 wrote:Hey,

Zender, your bios rocks I am running a Intel Wifi Link 5300 right now and it works perfectly in my T60p. Btw, I also do NOT experience any driver issues or bluescreens, as some stated before. No problems at all ..... thanks again zender.

Edit: btw, I also installed the official 3rd WLAN antenna for my 15" T60p, took a bit of time but in the end it worked out fine. Anyone looking into doing that feel free to ask any questions.

boba

I'm interested in knowing more, where did you obtain the 5300 from? Which driver are you using for the 5300? I don't suppose you have any pictures of how you installed the third antenna? Do you have the WAN card antennas still installed?

Thanks

Unfortunately, third WLAN antenna is mutually exclusive with primary WWAN antenna, in T60. Probably the best solution to combine these is to put some generic WLAN antenna under palmrest, even though it won't get you optimal performance, it's better than no antenna. Or pay the price of thick-bezeled post-T60 machines.

How are things coming on the z61? I remember you said the structure was different on this one..

Thanks for what you are doing!

Zender wrote:Probably the best solution to combine these is to put some generic WLAN antenna under palmrest, even though it won't get you optimal performance, it's better than no antenna

There is room under the palm rest on both the left and right hand sides to fit an antenna... however, you should think carefully about where you most often lay your hands when using the keyboard.

If your hand is consistently covering the antenna, the connectivity quality definitely goes down.

I initially put my third antenna on the right hand side on my T60, but after a while I realised that I often had my hand resting on the right hand palm rest over the antenna and so moved the antenna over to the left hand side plam rest. I then got noticeably better results (more consistent signal strength on 802.11n connections).

How you use your T60 is going to vary from indiviudal to individual, so that why you need to think carefully about your own usage patterns when selecting an under palm rest antenna placement.

With the left hand palm rest location, I get very similar 802.11n perfomance with Intel 4965AGNs at my most common Wi Fi usage location (about 10 metres from a Linksys WRT 600N, though a solid double brick load bearing wall) out of the T60 as I do from my X61 which came with three factory installed WiFi antennas.

Cheers,

Bill B.

Anyone who dares to be the first to test the new zender-modified bios (2.17) for the X60-machines?

X300 (XP Pro SP3)with 1.08 BIOS pre loaded , used the 1.08 mod from Zender and MC8775 (HS2300) causes 1804 no more and is working great with Sierra Wireless Generic 3G Watcher.


Thanks Zender

thbthb wrote:Anyone who dares to be the first to test the new zender-modified bios (2.17) for the X60-machines?

I used the old one on my X61s with Novatel Eu870D HSDPA card. Worked well.

Most of my parts arrived yesterday for my upgrade, including a 5300 wifi card. I am going to order an Atheros 5800 also and do some comparisons and I'll post my results.... but that is a topic for another thread.

I'm sure Zender is a busy man, and I don't want to bother him. I sent a PM request last Friday and I'm sure he has a zillion of them. If someone can provide me with the BIOS link... I'll put my parts in today.
I cant wait to crack the case!
bmark314 at gmail dot com

Thank you in advance!

I recently purchased an X200 Tablet and get the 1804 error when I use the miniPCIe card inside. However, I did notice something interested.... I have two miniPCIe slots, one has the AT&T card currently in the computer, and the other the WiFi card. When I put the Sprint card in place of the AT&T, I get the 1804 error. Well, I tried switching the location of the cards, and the system booted... no error message. However, once Windows loaded, it could see the wireless card, but not start it. And it didn't see the Sprint card. Could this possibly be a way around it if Windows would see the devices, an oversight on Lenovo's part?

@Zender

It's truly fantastic what you did and do. Right now I don't have interest in a modified BIOS but looking at this thread I see mostly requests for a modification.

Since this brings you nothing but work, wouldn't it be a good idea to describe the whole process on some website, possibly thinkwiki.org? Beside people that would just want to do the modification, this would allow more smart people like you to have a peek at the process which could end up in some improvements or some automation tools. I know that writing this would probably be boring for you but in a long run everyone would benefit.

As I'm also doing some reverse engineering work from time to time, it would be therefore a good opportunity for me to take a closer look at ThinkPad's BIOS internals too.

Please, think about it.
yak

Zender - Any progress with the X200 Tablet bios?

I'm replacing a 3945 genuine IBM with a 3945 non-genuine IBM as the original one is suspect faulty.

Would i need to do the tape on pin 2 with this as well? And would this have any adverse effects with WiFi operation etc?

Thanks

Hi,
I hope someone can help me out here. Bought a HP Sierra MC8775 off ebay, hoping to install it onto my X61. I've got the modified bios prepared on a bootable cd-rom and all but it seems my thinkpad won't allow me to boot from a cd on a usb cd-rom drive, saying some MSCD error or something. I tried searching up on this topic and came up with something similar
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... 0usb%20x61

Now i'm able to boot into command prompt with my usb flash drive but I am not able to flash the bios, when using the flash2 /u command I get an error. As I do not have the docking station I would prefer not having to spend extra just to get this done. Btw i'm using the 2.16 Bios i'm not sure if that will matter.

Any help will be deeply appreciated. Thanks![/url]

is the Bios site down? is there new link can someone PM me?

cheers
disco

Hello,

the domain expired (notification missed me) and while I'm trying to get it sorted out (yes there exist domain registrars here who don't accept cc payments), please replace ender.in with ender.web4u.cz domain.

thank you brother

cheers
disco

Thanks very much Zender, it now works perfectly.

However Access connections doesn't see the card (non lenovo 3945abg).

I read somewhere on here about altering a file to include the hardware key of the card. However I cant find it again!

Can someone point me to it?

Thanks

Andy

In case I haven't already, I also want to say thanks for all the hard work Zender has been putting in.

The X60 BIOS with full patch for WLAN has been tested.
Also added X200T, X301, T400, T500, only T400 not tested yet.
I have it fully automated (though still by PHP glue) for both old and new, so next time I find a little time, I'll finally get to write something about how to do it. Anyone interested in the toolset, which requires PHP, can drop me a note, but be aware that the PHP script is a quality example of how not to write code

The original domain still not working. Substitute for ender.web4u.cz.

Here's a possible workaround to taping pin 20-

I have a Dell 5720 Novatel Verizon card installed. Managed to get the Dell software installed (hacking the MSI) but couldn't get it powered up.

Before trying to tape pin 20, I happened to go into bios and out again. Appeared to leave the wwan turned on. Got into Windows, was able to activate/connect. Was also able to power down/power back up the card from the Dell app.

So - for those of us who don't reboot often this might be an option, assuming others can reproduce this.