Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

I have an Intel 6300 in my X201t, and want to get WiMAX for Sprint.
Can I just buy replace it with a 6250 (FRU 60Y3195)?
Do I need any other parts (antennas?)?

Thanks!

Since no one seems to know, I guess I'm going to just have to try it and find out

Will report back with results...

Braddah, I think it should be possible. 6300 means 3 ants in lid, 6250 means 2 so one would be idle. Card seems identical in shape etc.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Got the 6250, replaced my 6300 following the HMM. You are correct that the 6250 only has two antennas.
The 6250 showed in device manager no problem
Lenovo System Update didn't find it, so I manually downloaded and installed the drivers from Lenovo (installed both WIFI and WIMAX drivers).
That seemed to work fine, and my WIFI seems to work.

Then onto WIMAX...
I downloaded and installed Sprint's SmartView. However it says "No Devices Available" and settings/Hardware lists nothing.
At this point I've googled a bunch and am out of ideas.
Anyone been through this?

This is Win7-64 btw...

Is WIMAX enabled in the BIOS?

visionviper wrote:Is WIMAX enabled in the BIOS?

Yes. As far as I could see, there was only one option "Wireless LAN and WIMAX radios".

Ok, the adventure continues!

After lots of googling about the 6250, I realized that I was missing the "WIMAX Connection Utility" from Intel, which by screen shots seemed like it could check my HW and see if it was functioning.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling several versions of the drivers from Lenovo before my aha moment: "maybe Lenovo is removing the the Connection Utility!".

So I tried drivers downloaded from Intel, and the Connection Utility gets installed!
[I'm guessing Thinkvantage Access Connections (which I don't have installed) maybe can manage WIMAX connections?]

My 6250 HW looks good, and shows several WIMAX networks. I connect to CLEAR/Sprint and sign up...

Looks like a happy ending at last!

thinkpod: Good hear all is well and you have a working WiMax connection - What speeds are you experiencing?

Peak2Peak wrote:thinkpod: Good hear all is well and you have a working WiMax connection - What speeds are you experiencing?

Ha, well it looks like "a happy ending" was mentioned too soon. My Clear account doesn't seem to be set up right - I'm seem to be stuck at the startup screen.

Sigh, ok off to call Clear.

If I get it working, I'll report the speeds...

thinkpod wrote:Ha, well it looks like "a happy ending" was mentioned too soon. My Clear account doesn't seem to be set up right - I'm seem to be stuck at the startup screen.

Sigh, ok off to call Clear.

If I get it working, I'll report the speeds...

If you have a Clear account and are getting the splash page you should be able to click the "Existing Customer" link. (You may have to click another login link in the upper right hand corner of the page first.) Then you can login and switch the MAC address to your 6250 card. They say you have to call to switch devices, but you don't from my experience. (If you have one of the Home and On-The-Go bundles your mobile device may have "_bundle" appended to your account name. So you if your main account is "ThinkPad" you might have to login to Clear using the account name "ThinkPad_bundle" and the same password from your main account.)

I moved a 6250 from an X201 to an Ideapad S10-3t to see if it would work and it did after installing the Intel WiFi and WiMax drivers and utilities. Can you tell me where you ended up purchasing your 6250 (FRU 60Y3195) and how much it cost? (I saw some places but they wanted $180-240 which seems really high since Lenovo only charges ~$47 to upgrade from the crappy Thinkpad BGN card.)

And yes the Thinkvantage Access Connections utility can manage WIMAX connections.

As far as speeds they say up to 6 Mbps, which I get easily. In speed tests I see it go up as high as 12 Mbps, but after a few seconds it looks like a cap kicks in and it comes down to right about 6 Mbps. (I was about 1.5 blocks from the closest Clear tower.)

ThinkTiki wrote: If you have a Clear account and are getting the splash page you should be able to click the "Existing Customer" link. (You may have to click another login link in the upper right hand corner of the page first.) Then you can login and switch the MAC address to your 6250 card. They say you have to call to switch devices, but you don't from my experience.

Ugh. Well, despite many calls to Clear (including reverifying my MAC address many times), I never got it sorted out and cancelled the account. Now I'm not going to be in US for a while so don't have any reason to bash my head against that wall anymore...

ThinkTiki wrote:I moved a 6250 from an X201 to an Ideapad S10-3t to see if it would work and it did after installing the Intel WiFi and WiMax drivers and utilities. Can you tell me where you ended up purchasing your 6250 (FRU 60Y3195) and how much it cost? (I saw some places but they wanted $180-240 which seems really high since Lenovo only charges ~$47 to upgrade from the crappy Thinkpad BGN card.)

And yes the Thinkvantage Access Connections utility can manage WIMAX connections.

It was $148 from IBM. Not cheap at all.

But on the good side, Tokyo is blanketed in WIMAX from UQ Wimax and it works awesomely, so I'm really happy with my 6250.