Just received x220, wifi problem

[benny3411]

Hello all, I am new here. I just got a x220 about two days ago. I have a couple issues with it. I did a clean install of win 7 and though it did fix one of the problems, I still have a couple. The main problem is with the wifi, it constantly drops down to a low mbps number, around 50, 85, 101, 116, It should be around 144mbps here. I know it is not with the router, I had a T430 right before I got this x220, and it was fine here. I am thinking possibly the wifi card itself, maybe need to change it out. Here is some info. My s/n is R9-R3GKP. The wifi card is Intel Centrino Advanced N 6205. Im running Win 7 x64, 8gb memory, a 128gb Netac msata ssd I believe is 6gbps, i5 2520M. I was hoping a clean install would fix this issue, but it did not. Please take it easy on me here, an use small words....I have read some posts here and a lot of the reading is way over my head!

When starting/restarting it also seems to hold up, it has done this when I first got it, and also after a clean install. What I mean is after it says Starting Windows at the beginning and instead of it only taking a moment and then loading to the desktop, it holds up, the screen is blank and stays like that about 10-15 fifteen seconds or more. With this ssd I dont think it should be doing that. This problem is not that major, just annoying. Any info or comments are appreciated.

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to TPF.
Wifi-problem: see http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=122417

If that mSATA is in your WWAN-slot, it will "only" run at SATA-II speed (3gbps).
And if you have no HD/SSD in your main drive bay, that explains the 10-15 seconds drive-seeking time.
If you don't want/use such a drive, exclude it from your BIOS/Startup/Boot

[benny3411]

wow, your awesome. thank you for the info. im going to take out msata and do clean install on a 2.5" ssd. prob go with a samsung pro, 256gb. never knew about the 3gbps limit in the wwan slot. im also going to try a n6300 wifi card, see if that works better for me. wel once i receive everything ill let you know how it all turns out. thank you very much for reply!

[rjwilmsi]

Are you doing something specific whereby 50 Mb/s WiFi connection speed isn't enough? If you need an extremely reliable high-speed connection perhaps you should be using ethernet?

Have you tried adjusting the WiFi power settings etc. within Windows/driver settings? I'd expect that Windows/the WiFi drivers will by default look to find a compromise between connection speed and power use, perhaps are deciding that higher connection speed is using too much power to be worth it.

How is WiFi positioned in relation to router?

I'm not convinced as to whether switching to the 6300 tri-band card will improve your maximum connection speed.

I run an X220 with an mSATA card, and again, unless you are doing something very specific that involves sustained large file transfers at over 300 MB/s, the SATA-II / SATA-300 limit is never in practicality an issue at all. If you've only one drive installed I'm not sure where you are finding another drive or device to send/receive data at over 2.4 Gb/s. If you want to buy the fastest available SATA drive that's up to you but if your needs are really that specific wouldn't you be getting a newer machine with M2 PCIe support to avoid the SATA-III / SATA-600 limit of about 550 MB/s?