Thinkpads Forum

Hi All,

Been looking around for this answer, but has anyone upgraded their T61 to the Intel 6300AGN card?

I already have the whitelist bios with sata II support, I just am curious, if possible to get this card to work, on how to fit the smaller (half-height) newer card into the larger older (full height) wlan slot?

Any information would be appreciated.

Thank you!

You'd need something like this half-size/full-size bracket: http://cgi.ebay.com/Wifi-Mini-PCI-E-Hal ... 0511640497
You could make this yourself if you are handy with a hacksaw and drill/dremel.

Perfect! Thank you!!

I don't know why, but I had been thinking that you could theoretically usea couple of paper clips and some screws. This is much cleaner though

Anyone know of the specific part number for the lenovo branded intel 6300agn card?

Thanks again!

One of them is 60Y3193
http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-6300AGN-N-len ... 4cf37d6321

Kamika007z wrote: I don't know why, but I had been thinking that you could theoretically usea couple of paper clips and some screws.

You can. I've done it. My advice: just buy a bracket.

Harryc wrote:One of them is 60Y3193
http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-6300AGN-N-len ... 4cf37d6321

Great! Thank you Harry!! Good price and free shipping too!

ThinkRob wrote:You can. I've done it. My advice: just buy a bracket.

Hahaha... ok then. Duly noted Thanks for the advice.

Kamika007z wrote:Great! Thank you Harry!! Good price and free shipping too!

You're welcome. It's a good deal if you are not in a hurry. Shipping from the Far East can take 2 weeks or so.

Yeah, it can take a while.

I just hope this isn't a knockoff from the original, then I'm good with buying it.

Just wondering, but why bother with a Lenovo-branded one? If it's for a T61p, then AFAIK even a Lenovo-badged part will produce an error, as the T61p never shipped with a 6300 (and thus the ID is not in the BIOS whitelist.)

I once tried using an Intel 5300AGN that wasn't really locked down (it was for a Dell laptop) and it caused issues with power management and DPC latencies. Especially when the screen turned off and back on, the machine would stutter.

In theory, I'm hoping that a "Lenovo firmware'd version" will not let this type of issue happen as it did with the non-branded 5300 one.

Kamika007z wrote:I once tried using an Intel 5300AGN that wasn't really locked down (it was for a Dell laptop) and it caused issues with power management and DPC latencies. Especially when the screen turned off and back on, the machine would stutter.

That's very odd. I've used Dell-branded (and entirely unbranded) 5100s and 5300s in a variety of ThinkPads and have never seen that. TBH I'd suspect a bad card...

If that's the case, then I think you're right... I bet it was bad too.

Kamika007z wrote:Hi All,

Been looking around for this answer, but has anyone upgraded their T61 to the Intel 6300AGN card?

I already have the whitelist bios with sata II support, I just am curious, if possible to get this card to work, on how to fit the smaller (half-height) newer card into the larger older (full height) wlan slot?

Any information would be appreciated.

Thank you!

Hi Kamika007z,

i am thinking about doing the same thing, using a 6300 agn card in my t61p. would you be able to PM with a link to the bios that you used? were you still able to use AC or does that not work anymore with the modded bios?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,Felipe

I used this BIOS: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=93506

Also, I purchased the wifi bracket which someone was kind enough to post on this thread here on eBay.

The card I used was from a W701. I don't use AC, but I'm willing to bet it would work just fine.

I hope this helps!

Thank you to everyone else here on these forums.

thank you for the info!

i'm gonna download and install, hopefully all goes well

i am having some difficulty flashing the bios, i get an error 99 (179), with wording about bitlocker and the drive becoming unreadable. i am not using bitlocker, but i do have win7 64 bit. how do i go about fixing this? TIA

Hmm...

When I installed the BIOS, I just burned the appropriate iso to cd and then booted up the machine with the cd. Make sure you first flash down to 2.25 or lower, then flash back up with the modded BIOS.

Also, when it boots off of the cd, it just loads the firmware via commands automatically, so let it do its thing. (Its been a while, but I believe this is what it did).

Keep us updated!

Just in case: you have to do this from an INTERNAL CD/DVD, not from a USB or other external drive!

well i was able to do it! it seems that the update would not work on 64 bit OS so i installed my original vista drive (kept for backup purposes) and flashed the BIOS from there. All went well. i then reinstalled the win7 64 bit harddrive and had no issues with boot up. The only other question i have, is how do i know if im getting the hight speed over sata? i am going to get the wifi card soon so that will be another test to see if the BIOS flash worked.

Thanks for your help and advice!

My fault, I should've been clearer that you will need to use a bootable CD to flash the system.

You can see if SATA II is enabled through the Intel RST driver set.

It'll say Mode: Generation 2.

Let us know!

i want to thank all of you guys, the update did work! shows Generation 2. Now i just have to get my new wireless card and halfsize adaptor.