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Fastest mini-PCIE Wifi Bluetooth Combo-card W500 Can Handle?

W500/W510/W520 and W700/W701 Series
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SaganAndroid
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Fastest mini-PCIE Wifi Bluetooth Combo-card W500 Can Handle?

#1 Post by SaganAndroid » Thu May 20, 2021 1:47 am

Note: I'm using Windows 7 Pro x64, and because I am in the majority who can't stand Win8.1, and can't get Win10 to work well on the W500, Win 7 is where I stay for the foreseeable future.

So I hooked a USB 3.0 external HD to my AC1600 speed wifi router and was unimpresssed by the speed. Turns out the bottleneck is the circa 2009 wifi card that came with the W500. 144MBits/sec seems to be the most the Intel Wifi Link 5300 AGN can do on this 2.53GH system.

So, which faster/newer Mini PCIE wifi cards play well with the W500 and Win7 x64? Ideally the card should offer BlueTooth support as well. Should handle sleep/hibernate/etc. correctly. Should coexist peacefully with external wifi devices like the Alfa.

I'm assuming/hoping that the driver will abstract things so that the Lenovo's software like Access Connections, etc., will work correctly.

RealBlackStuff
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Re: Fastest mini-PCIE Wifi Bluetooth Combo-card W500 Can Handle?

#2 Post by RealBlackStuff » Thu May 20, 2021 2:37 am

You'll need a modded BIOS with the wifi-whitelist removed and Slic2.1 added.
T500 and W500 use the same BIOS, so consider that in your search.
Best option would be a PCIe AC-7260 Intel card, model 7260HMW.
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SaganAndroid
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Re: Fastest mini-PCIE Wifi Bluetooth Combo-card W500 Can Handle?

#3 Post by SaganAndroid » Sat May 22, 2021 10:18 pm

How do I mod the BIOS (and does it matter which BIOS I am [currently] using?)? What it this whitelist you speka of and where do I get this modded BIOS? And what's Slic2 do and were do I get it?

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Re: Fastest mini-PCIE Wifi Bluetooth Combo-card W500 Can Handle?

#4 Post by RealBlackStuff » Sun May 23, 2021 3:00 am

You use the likes of DuckDuckGo to get the general idea.
You also do some searching on this forum, where you'd find stuff like this: viewtopic.php?t=127334
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
Lenovo: X240, X250, T440p, T480, M900 Tiny.

PS: the old Boardroom website is still available on the Wayback Machine
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axur-delmeria
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Re: Fastest mini-PCIE Wifi Bluetooth Combo-card W500 Can Handle?

#5 Post by axur-delmeria » Sun May 23, 2021 4:50 am

Seems like you're connecting to the 2.4GHz band. On my X61 with Intel 4965 AGN (which is older that your Intel 5300 AGN), I get link speeds up to 270Mbps on my AC1200 router on the 5GHz band. Maybe your router is set up such that the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands are set to the same SSID (which is the default for most of them).
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SaganAndroid
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Re: Fastest mini-PCIE Wifi Bluetooth Combo-card W500 Can Handle?

#6 Post by SaganAndroid » Sun May 23, 2021 10:53 pm

The 2.4GHz SSID is Bob. The 5GHz SSID is Bob-5G. Is that different enough? i'd think it would be. I'm hoping to get as fast a wifi connection mostly becuase of the USB 3.0 drive \\readyshare thing.

SaganAndroid
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Re: Fastest mini-PCIE Wifi Bluetooth Combo-card W500 Can Handle?

#7 Post by SaganAndroid » Sun May 23, 2021 11:00 pm

RealBlackStuff wrote:
Sun May 23, 2021 3:00 am
You use the likes of DuckDuckGo to get the general idea.
You also do some searching on this forum, where you'd find stuff like this: viewtopic.php?t=127334
I don't really like the high noise to signal ratio on search engines. It gets worse every year. I prefer to go to specialty sites, like this one. At such sites, presumably, people are knowledgeable and willing to share what they know.

I tried the link but found it nearly useless. It would be more useful to those who are already know what's what regarding BIOS, the T500, whitelists, etc. Now, maybe if there were a FAQ on W500 BIOS issues, mods, whitelists, etc., to get us noobs up to speed... then that thread might make more sense to me.

axur-delmeria
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Re: Fastest mini-PCIE Wifi Bluetooth Combo-card W500 Can Handle?

#8 Post by axur-delmeria » Mon May 24, 2021 5:51 am

SaganAndroid wrote:
Sun May 23, 2021 10:53 pm
The 2.4GHz SSID is Bob. The 5GHz SSID is Bob-5G. Is that different enough? i'd think it would be. I'm hoping to get as fast a wifi connection mostly becuase of the USB 3.0 drive \\readyshare thing.
Yeah, that's different enough.

So you're trying to connect to Bob-5G but only get 144Mbps max link speed? How far is the laptop from the router and are there any obstacles between them?

5GHz range isn't as good as 2.4GHz, and easily affected by obstructions. Then again, it could be caused by other things like a broken wifi antenna or cable in the laptop.
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons :lol:
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E :cry:

SaganAndroid
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu May 20, 2021 12:10 am
Location: Ithaca, NY

Re: Fastest mini-PCIE Wifi Bluetooth Combo-card W500 Can Handle?

#9 Post by SaganAndroid » Sun Jun 20, 2021 10:33 am

axur-delmeria wrote:
Mon May 24, 2021 5:51 am

Yeah, that's different enough.

So you're trying to connect to Bob-5G but only get 144Mbps max link speed? How far is the laptop from the router and are there any obstacles between them?

5GHz range isn't as good as 2.4GHz, and easily affected by obstructions. Then again, it could be caused by other things like a broken wifi antenna or cable in the laptop.
No more than 14 feet with one thin wall between us. I tried line of sight at about 8 feet and no change. The speed I quote is what the W500 states when it connects or when I hover the mouse pointer over the wifi connections icon on the taskbar.

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