Thinkpads Forum

II have a new T400 with the 5300 WiFi card, new in October, BUT before the Wimax 5350 card was out.

The part number for the 5350 card is 42T0965, $146 at the Lenovo online parts web page.

Does anyone know if this is as simple as spending $146 and just swapping the cards? There should be three antennas already installed, HOWEVER, I am concerned that the 5300 antennas might be different than the 5350 since the Wimax frequency is different??? There are two different antenna part numbers listed in the HMM, BUT that might be because the 5100 card is also available from the factory.

$146 is a bit steep, but I would like to avoid a Wimax express card if I could basically plug and play with the 5350 card from Lenovo.

I should add that I have been a Clearwire user for 2+ years at my office and this would be adding the mobile ability when out of the office, "allegedly" all Clearwire needs is the MAC address from the installed 5350 card to enable that on their service. I need to check into that some more before dropping the coin on a 5350, assuming there are no other technical issues.

SHG

See discussion here.... http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=69548

Cheers,

Bill B.

Bill, thanks, I had read that thread yesterday while searching this site. From that thread it appears that it is "unknown" what antenna is installed in the 5350 Thinkpads from the factory. If that is the same as the 5300 cards (both have triple antennas installed) then the upgrade should work, however, I think the antenna answer is still unknown!

SHG

the 5350 WiMAX card has ABGN capability (and uses only the three standard connectors for MIMO) so i doubt you'd need a special antenna.   the T400 HMM shows two FRUs for WLAN/WWAN/WUSB antenna arrays but the only difference is the manufacturer: one is made by amphenol and the other by nissei.

given the above, as long as you currently have a MIMO antenna array in your T400, the 5350 should work without issue.   i can't say this definitively but have no reason to think otherwise at this point in time.

Erik,

Thanks for your comments, I expect you are correct.

SHG

erik wrote:given the above, as long as you currently have a MIMO antenna array in your T400, the 5350 should work without issue.   i can't say this definitively but have no reason to think otherwise at this point in time.

The MIMO array appears to be tuned for 2.4 GHz WiFi band operation and will certainly work for 802.11 purposes in that band, as WiFi bands are interntionally standardised for WiFi purposes.

The question remains on how effective WiFi anntennas could be for 802.16 purposes in the 2.5 to 2.7 GHz band. WiMax is basically a cellular style technology and like the 3G/LTE technologies, the bands WWANs operate on are not internationally standardised.

Here's a comment on 5350 and antennas....

• September 23, 2008
  
  I'm on the verge of killing some laptop orders because the manufacturer doesn't yet have Intel's 5350 card in them. We want the laptops to come with the cards, because we want to have the WiMAX antenna in the display housings of those laptops. That will provide much better performance than the tiny antennas in external add-on WiMAX cards or dongles (we've already seen similar performance differences with WiFi).
  
  The laptop manufacturer tells me that you can't simply later replace an existing 5300 (WiFi-only) card with a 5350 (WiFi + WiMAX) card because a different antenna assembly is needed for the WiMAX card.
  
  http://scoop.intel.com/2008/09/catching ... x-wave.php

We need some user reports of how well it works in practice but there don't seem to be any such reports around as yet!

http://xkcd.com/416/

Cheers,

Bill B.

Interesting reading...

And I was reading some article just before I bought my T400 saying all T4xx/5xx is "WiMax" ready and only need to swap the card.

Hmm....

EDIT: Nevermind.

I am sure if your original card is 5300

Please refer to my picture
http://picasaweb.google.com/laser004/T4 ... 9696554706

I have replace my 5100 with a 5350 without FRU, and I am feeling strange that my 5100 has no FRU tab either

Look at the yellow circle, there are three antennas it is the same for 5300 and 5350

Don't warry about the frequency because when u turn on Wimax, the Wifi will be automatically turn off

and WWAN is using the two antennas in the red circle

I am so lucky because someone have reported that he has only two antennas as he has ordered 5100

Shelby Griggs wrote:II have a new T400 with the 5300 WiFi card, new in October, BUT before the Wimax 5350 card was out.

The part number for the 5350 card is 42T0965, $146 at the Lenovo online parts web page.

Does anyone know if this is as simple as spending $146 and just swapping the cards? There should be three antennas already installed, HOWEVER, I am concerned that the 5300 antennas might be different than the 5350 since the Wimax frequency is different??? There are two different antenna part numbers listed in the HMM, BUT that might be because the 5100 card is also available from the factory.

$146 is a bit steep, but I would like to avoid a Wimax express card if I could basically plug and play with the 5350 card from Lenovo.

I should add that I have been a Clearwire user for 2+ years at my office and this would be adding the mobile ability when out of the office, "allegedly" all Clearwire needs is the MAC address from the installed 5350 card to enable that on their service. I need to check into that some more before dropping the coin on a 5350, assuming there are no other technical issues.

SHG

Any update on if it is possible to swap the 5300 out for a 5350 without changing the antennas?

BUMP
Anyone?