Thinkpads Forum

I had my screen replaced due to issues with the old one, it being broken and all. After getting a new screen finally installed and working, whenever I access wireless in Windows or Linux the machine will hardlock within 10 minutes. This only happens if I access the wireless. I'm not too keen on prying my laptop open, but it seems I probably will have to. What would be the first few things to look for?

Would I need to get into the screen assembly?

Thanks.

If you are running Lenovo's Access Connections 5.01 or 5.02 then this is probably causing your problems. A bandaid fix is to revert to AC 4.52 from Lenovo's website.

spwhiting@ wrote:If you are running Lenovo's Access Connections 5.01 or 5.02 then this is probably causing your problems. A bandaid fix is to revert to AC 4.52 from Lenovo's website.

It's Windows or Linux.

Since the wireless antennas are in the screen bezel--I would expect that when the scree was replaced, someone didn't quite reconnect the antennas properly, or perhaps they unseated the radio card when they did.

Options would be to open up the computer, check the antenna connections and the radio card, or call back whoever did the repair and say "Takee Fixee" and insist on a remake.

Sometimes, even the best of techs manages to break something while they've "got the hood open".

So I took it home, used it on unsecured wireless all night. No lockup, brought it in to work, had it on WPA2 wireless, locked up within 10 minutes.

Think the card is having issues and if so can I replace it with an Atheros N capable card for awesomeness?

The Atheros N card is great the only issue might be that it uses 3 antennas not 2 like in regular ABG cards so it could possibly not worth the trouble and money. Just a suggestion.

peralex1 wrote:The Atheros N card is great the only issue might be that it uses 3 antennas not 2 like in regular ABG cards so it could possibly not worth the trouble and money. Just a suggestion.

I have it in hooked up to all 3 antennas, really just waiting on ath9k now.

Other than that, madwifi works great, and now I have an Intel ABGN 4965 card as a spare sitting on my desk, not sure which configuration I prefer. Time will tell. Lots of cool things you can do with the Atheros chipsets

tylerwylie wrote:So I took it home, used it on unsecured wireless all night. No lockup, brought it in to work, had it on WPA2 wireless, locked up within 10 minutes.

Think the card is having issues and if so can I replace it with an Atheros N capable card for awesomeness?

Don't you think this points to a software problem and not a hardware problem? Have you tried un-installing Access Connections and letting Windows manage your wireless connections?

mixz1 wrote:

tylerwylie wrote:So I took it home, used it on unsecured wireless all night. No lockup, brought it in to work, had it on WPA2 wireless, locked up within 10 minutes.

Think the card is having issues and if so can I replace it with an Atheros N capable card for awesomeness?

Don't you think this points to a software problem and not a hardware problem? Have you tried un-installing Access Connections and letting Windows manage your wireless connections?

It was happening cross platforms, if you read up above you'll see. I wonder why that points to a software problem when the encryption is done in the card and not the software?

Also, Windows is not the only OS

Anyways AR5418 card works fine now, no more locking up and madwifi is kickin [censored] and taking names.

tylerwylie wrote:

peralex1 wrote:The Atheros N card is great the only issue might be that it uses 3 antennas not 2 like in regular ABG cards so it could possibly not worth the trouble and money. Just a suggestion.

I have it in hooked up to all 3 antennas, really just waiting on ath9k now.

Other than that, madwifi works great, and now I have an Intel ABGN 4965 card as a spare sitting on my desk, not sure which configuration I prefer. Time will tell. Lots of cool things you can do with the Atheros chipsets

Hi!
I have Intel 4965 AGN right now and I'm thinking about the change
In my previous laptop I've been using Wistron CM9 (based on AR5004X - Atheros AR5213A, AR5112) - after changing it from Intel 2200BG - and it's range and stability was awesome.

I wanted to ask you about some things.

1) Did you buy some Atheros based chipset card that has 3 antennas connection?
2) Did you notice some range improvement?
3) Did you notice that the computer works shorter on the battery with Atheros card?
4) Did you experience any problems in connection of T61x and Atheros card?

I'm thinking about Atheros AR5BXB72 (Chipset AR5008E-3NX) - maybe there's something better in it's price?

Thanks in advance for reply,

Yes, I have the 3 antenna one. The card I have is the AR5418 ABGN. It works in Windows but I did not do enough extensive testing in Windows to answer these questions.

In Linux the hardware is still slightly too new, so I still haven't been able to test. Really waiting on ath9k for the testing.

tylerwylie wrote:Yes, I have the 3 antenna one. The card I have is the AR5418 ABGN. It works in Windows but I did not do enough extensive testing in Windows to answer these questions.

In Linux the hardware is still slightly too new, so I still haven't been able to test. Really waiting on ath9k for the testing.

OK, thank you for the answer.
My last question - did you experience this problem : http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=55837 and had to 'upgrade' BIOS or everything worked fine without that?

Nope, not with my 7658CTO. The AR5418/Thinkpad ABGN chipset works fine.