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801.11ac Wireless Card?

X60/X61 and X60t/X61t Series
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E350
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801.11ac Wireless Card?

#1 Post by E350 » Tue Aug 05, 2014 1:57 pm

Is there an 802.11ac wireless card available for X61? Anybody put one in? What are the results?

I previously flashed my BIOS with Middleton's BIOS and have been running an Intel 802.11n mini card.

So a more pinpoint question would, I guess, be would this mini card work in its place?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... llFullInfo

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-7260HMW-I ... 58aeef9487

ajkula66
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Re: 801.11ac Wireless Card?

#2 Post by ajkula66 » Fri Aug 08, 2014 9:17 pm

People have successfully installed 7260AC cards in T60 units, so there's no reason why it wouldn't work in a X61.
...Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules...(King Crimson)

Cheers,

George (your grouchy retired FlexView farmer)

One FlexView to rule them all: A31p

Abused daily: T520, X200s


PMs requesting personal tech support will be ignored.

E350
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Re: 801.11ac Wireless Card?

#3 Post by E350 » Tue Jan 10, 2017 9:00 pm

ajkula66 et al. Its been a couple of years so I am going to bump my own thread since I have upgraded one router and will probably upgrade my other routers to NETGEAR Nighthawk X4S - AC2600 4x4 MU-MIMO Smart WiFi Dual Band Gigabit Gaming Router (R7800-100NAS)*

Would like to take advantage of 5Ghz frequency for close wifi connections from X61 to the router.

So, here I go again:

Is there an 802.11ac wireless card available for X61 with Middleton BIOS? Anybody put one in? What are the results?

* BTW, I have decided to return the Netgear R7800 because it actually has less range in 2.4Ghz than my old Linksys WRT54G and have ordered two TP-Link Archer C7 which I hope have the 2.4Ghz range of the old Linksys and the impeccable reliability of the old Linksys. FWIW, TP-Link Archer C7 is still the #1 Best Seller on Amazon. If anyone has experience with it or other recommendations, don't hesitate to state.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BUSDVBQ/?t ... ag=WC29013

and see, The Best Wi-Fi Router (for Most People) last updated December 13, 2016:

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-router/

flyingfishfinger
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Re: 801.11ac Wireless Card?

#4 Post by flyingfishfinger » Wed Jan 11, 2017 2:23 pm

My usual recommendation is the Azurewave AW-CE123H. Cheap, half size, BT4 + 802.11ac. And also compatible with Hackintoshes, if you care.
It has served me very well and I like it, but since I don't have any AC network to test with I can't really comment on its performance in that department.

R

E350
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Re: 801.11ac Wireless Card?

#5 Post by E350 » Sat Feb 11, 2017 9:51 pm

I just upgraded my routers to TP-Link Archer C7 AC and put an Intel AC 7260 Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 2x2 Network plus Bluetooth adapter (7260.HMWWB.R) mini-pc wifi card with adapter in my X61. I friggin' love it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N7 ... UTF8&psc=1

http://www.ebay.com/itm/322406553653?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

Note: The above are aparently the same "revised" cards. There are a lot of older versions of the card for sale out there. I searched and bought the revised card for my wife's T61p (coming in the mail) but have the older version AC 7260 HMW installed in my X61 with no problems.

But I had already flashed the BIOS with Middleton's BIOS to remove the whitelist on the X61 years ago to accomodate the 4965AGN-wifi card I had installed in the X61. So, all I had to do to get the X61 working with the AC 7260 was download the drivers from the Intel website (for Windows 10 - which by the way I also love on the X61 and on our two T61p),

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/produc ... ss-AC-7260

install the AC 7260 mini-pc card with adapter,

http://www.ebay.com/itm/262289730083?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

set up the router's SSID's etc., and renamed my Thinkvantage Access Connections locations to "2.4GHz" and "5GHz" and was good to go. Getting between 144.4 Mbps to ~333 Mbps on 2.4GHz and up to 866 Mbps on 5GHz (of course that is in the local area network, so connection with the internet is still way slow, because I refuse to pay for the high priced high speed internet...)

And success again with the Intel AC 7260 wifi card not only in the X61 last week, but today also in the T61p!

5GHz = 866Mbps baby!!!
2.4GHz = 144.4 Mbps !!!

Interesting happened with the T61p (and this also happened with the X61 with the same card) although after flashing the BIOS I didn't get an 1802 Error code, the card was not recognized, so I went into Device Manager and there it was, and it was acting properly, and when I went to Update Driver it said it already had the best driver. So, I restarted the laptop again and it was recognized and worked fine on 2.4GHz.

But it would not connect on 5GHz. So I went to Thinkvantage Access Connections location profile for my 5GHz and it still had the 4965AGN card in there for the adapter. So I deleted that location profile and then hit Find and found the 5GHZ SSID that the router was sending out and built a new Multi Access Connection location profile around it which automatically recognized the AC 7260 card.

And now all is good.

BTW, I ended up finding that Windows 10 has its own CD/DVD burning software which, once I read 'bout it, was easy to burn Middleton's BIOS update iso image to CD. One thing to remember it will cycle continuously unless you pop the CD out after the machine shuts down before it automatically restarts.

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Re: 801.11ac Wireless Card?

#6 Post by upgrades » Sat Feb 11, 2017 11:01 pm

isnt it a big risk to flash the bios? A tech told me if something goes wrong the laptop is toast

E350
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Re: 801.11ac Wireless Card?

#7 Post by E350 » Sun Feb 12, 2017 2:13 pm

upgrades: I have also heard it is a great risk to flash the BIOS, so I am not disagreeing with you.

On the other hand, I have been doing it with the guidance of the Real Black Stuff, ajkula66 and axur-delmeria since at least 2011. Many of the upgrades that you will do to these excellent, hardy, componentized Thinkpad laptops are not recommended. For instance, I am running Windows 10 64-bit with 8Gb of RAM, 750Gb Seagate Hybrid hard drive, and a AC 7260 wifi card on X61 and T61p -- all of which exceeds the stated capacity of these 2008-2009 era Core 2 Duo computers. And it all works most excellently.

Follow the advice of the gurus here. Proceed slowly. Take a risk. Own the risk. And learn.

It will make you grow.

jaspen-meyer
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Re: 801.11ac Wireless Card?

#8 Post by jaspen-meyer » Sun Feb 12, 2017 2:29 pm

I've bricked several motherboards by flashing bad bioses. Flashing Middleton Bios isn't much of a risk though.

For the wifi card, are you considering a 3x3 card or is the 2x2 Intel 7260 fast enough?
T420 i7 3612QM seabios; T420 i7 3630QM; T400 Q9100 seabios; T61 P9600; T60 libreboot; x62; x60s libreboot, led; x24 xiphmont led

upgrades
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Re: 801.11ac Wireless Card?

#9 Post by upgrades » Sun Feb 12, 2017 3:08 pm

what top models numbers of wireless wifi would be suitable for W520 series that pose the least amount of risk?

E350
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Re: 801.11ac Wireless Card?

#10 Post by E350 » Sun Feb 12, 2017 3:26 pm

Hmmm... I see your post in the W520 subforum. I don't know why the other poster recommended that you post in this subforum. But no worries. Real Black Stuff is a moderator/administrator in both forums.

I suggest that you shine a search light reflecting the letters "RBS" on the clouds in the night sky and wait patiently until he or ajkula66 reveal themselves.

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