Thinkpads Forum

My T420 is now mostly useless at connecting to a network. While I was successfully replacing the screen, I noticed that the aux connector was disconnected and hanging free. So I tried to press it back down, but broke it. The white part (core, is it called?) popped out. The main wire is still connected so the computer can sort of still connect to a network with the internal card, but the network connection is very weak, and goes on and off.

I can of course get an external network adapter, but is there any possibility that I can replace the ruined aux wire?

Does your t420 not have the white 3rd antenna wire? In a jiffy you could also use a wwan wire.

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 18, 2024 11:40 am

Does your t420 not have the white 3rd antenna wire? In a jiffy you could also use a wwan wire.

Dunno, but I'll look. Thanks. I thought there were only two antenna wires. Is the spare (or spares?) one of those wires that goes down into the area where the RAM is, which seem to connect to nothing? I never knew what those were for.

If you are handy with a soldering iron, you could solder the antenna to the card.
Inner antenna-wire to the centre of the card-connector (or to the matching spot on the bottom of that card).
Metal shielding to the outer ring of that connector (or to the matching spot on the bottom of that card).
Just make sure neither wire makes false contact anywhere.

You can harvest the WiFi antennas (with attached cables) from another T420.