Thinkpads Forum

I have an X201s which connects fine to a fixed hotspot I tested it on (a university public 801.11n, if that matters). Using my phoneternet hotspot it disconnects within a minute or two. It will reconnect manually, but will soon disconnect.
I'm using Access Connections as I find it far less bother than windows, or perhaps I'm just familiar with it. AC 5.
The same phone hotspot can remain connected indefinitely to different thinkpad, so it seems not to be that. It also works if conneced via usb cable, that's not a solution as I don't care to lug a cable around.

Is this a common issue, and does anyone know where to look for the cause?

What wifi card are this and the other Thinkpad using?

Atreides wrote:What wifi card are this and the other Thinkpad using?

Old, works fine: Atheros 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI
New, headaches: Intel Centrino Advanced 6200 AGN

It's frustrating enough that I've had to set the machine aside for the most part, as I'm usually connecting on wifi of some sort.

Have you installed the latest drivers from Intel?

atanasoff wrote:

Atreides wrote:What wifi card are this and the other Thinkpad using?

Old, works fine: Atheros 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI
New, headaches: Intel Centrino Advanced 6200 AGN

It's frustrating enough that I've had to set the machine aside for the most part, as I'm usually connecting on wifi of some sort.

And what is model of your phoneternet hotspot???
I think it works in 2 bands - for older WiFi for example - g @ 2.4GHz and old Thinkpad can use it. And for newer WiFi - n 5 GHz. Your X201 can use any of bands. And by defaut prefer n. But maybe 5Ghz (n) band overloaded or jammed. What signal strength shows AC or windows wireless applet when connected?
Can you reconfigure your hotswap or make X201 use g band?

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And what is model of your phoneternet hotspot???
I think it works in 2 bands - for older WiFi for example - g @ 2.4GHz and old Thinkpad can use it. And for newer WiFi - n 5 GHz. Your X201 can use any of bands. And by defaut prefer n. But maybe 5Ghz (n) band overloaded or jammed. What signal strength shows AC or windows wireless applet when connected?
Can you reconfigure your hotswap or make X201 use g band?
---------------

Further testing reveals that the problem isn't limited to the phonespot, it's also at public hotspots. I've found only one wifi spot where it works, which just happened to be the first public location I tried. It's a university network and probably using different equipment than the typical public space wifi.

My Phoneternet hotspot is via a Moto Photon which does 2.4 only, b/g/n. No 5GHz. That's plenty, as both g and n are new and fast enough.
A few minutes on Google showed this was a known issue with a trouble ticket at Intel but I couldn't find how (if?) it was resolved.

I tried disabling N mode on the 201s, no change.
Signal strength shows 99%, using 802.11g

Further:

From the Lenovo site, I d/l and installed
Intel Wireless LAN (11agn 11bgn 11ac) version 17.0.2
which includes a problem fix
"- Fixed an issue where the wireless connection dropped"

with somewhat high hopes.

Nope. Not fixed.


--
detail:
This is the latest applicable driver; while it doesn't list the 6200 card it does list 6205, it installs, looks OK in Device Manager and operates. I suspect leaving 6200 off the list was an oversight, as the earlier drivers tell one to go look for a later version. Meanwhile, the old one connects without complaint.