Thinkpads Forum

I know ive seen a thread about this somewhere but i cant find it for the life of me. I was experiencing alot of dropped connections and weak signal strength with my intel wireless card so i decided to swap it out for an atheros card. It was recognized immediately and is working fine but i cannot get AC to see the card. So i am relegated to allowing windows to handle the wireless networking. Anyone know how to get AC using the new card? ive tried uninstalling and reinstalling AC but no luck.

Perhaps you should download the software specific to the Atheros card?

I did that. When i ran system update it recognized the new card and found newer drivers for the network card and installed them. I even removed and reinstalled AC after installing the updated drivers.

Uninstall and reinstall the following:
1 - Access Connections and location profiles
2 - Power Manager
3 - HotKey features
4 - Wireless LAN drivers

You probably did not do the bolded items above, since it is counter intuitive that one should have to uninstall those items.

Weez,
Where did you purchase your Atheros card and how much did it cost?

I have been experiencing similar problems with my Intel card and am debating whether to upgrade.

Have you noticed an improvement in wireless signal strength?

EOMtp,

Thanks I will try those steps this evening.

Weez

Trolle,

I bought it on ebay for $49 plus $5 shipping. I will post the link later, the seller had 40+ pieces.

Weez

EOMtp,

Worked perfectly! Thanks it is much appreciated.

Trolle,

I waited to answer your question about the signal strength because i wanted to compare them in AC and not while allowing windows to manage the connection. The atheros signal strengths are way higher than the IBM was, I have 4 WAP's in my house and while sitting in my kitchen I used to get 80% for WAP1, 70% WAP2 and 30% for WAP3, WAP4 never was recognized (Basement WAP) Now I am getting 100% WAP1, 100% WAP2, 80% WAP3 and 60% WAP4. I am also seeing several neighbors WAP's that I never saw before.

Weez,

Thanks for the response. I will certainly consider upgrading the wireless card in my X60. Hopefully it will remove the problems with dropped connections and AC as well.

Maybe you could post the seller you used? I checked Ebay but there were quite a few sellers of Atheros cards and I am unsure which one is the correct model and the latest version.

Seller was teckwave_store his email is sales@teckwave.com, you can ask him if he has any of these available. This was the listing for my card but i dont see it listed anymore. When i purchased mine it said he had 40 available

40Y7026 Lenovo ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini-PCI

Thanks for the post Weez. I will check it out immediately.

Weez wrote: I waited to answer your question about the signal strength because i wanted to compare them in AC and not while allowing windows to manage the connection. The atheros signal strengths are way higher than the IBM was, I have 4 WAP's in my house and while sitting in my kitchen I used to get 80% for WAP1, 70% WAP2 and 30% for WAP3, WAP4 never was recognized (Basement WAP) Now I am getting 100% WAP1, 100% WAP2, 80% WAP3 and 60% WAP4. I am also seeing several neighbors WAP's that I never saw before.

That's consistent with what I found when I put in the Atheros card.

Weez wrote:The atheros signal strengths are way higher than the IBM was

The ibm thinkpad wifi card *IS* the atheros card.

Does anyone know what Atheros version the ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wireless LAN (product #40Y7026) is?

I can't seem to find it and wanted to make sure that I was buying the most up-to-date hardware.

I read a press release on Atheros' website that Lenovo was going to install Atheros’ AR5008E-3NX LAN, but this was announced 12 days ago and I doubt I can find or afford this latest version.

Can only seem to find 40Y7026.

The IBM/Thinkpad 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI Express card is FRU #39T5578; it is an Atheros AR5BXB6 card.

So which one is better? Or, do they have similar performance?

Does it even matter which one I install?

Does it matter which wireless routers/AP you are using?

I feel that perhaps some wireless card doesn't work with well with certain types of wireless routers/APs... Perhaps chipset compatibility? Interferences?