Very poor signal strength from Intel/Pro wireless on z61t

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zhenya · #1 Post by **zhenya** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:18 pm

I have a z61t here that seems to have very poor signal reception. For example, my z60t with the Atheros card has 100% signal in my living room, while this z61 is at 68% (and the z60 has a broken diversity antenna!). Anybody else experience anything similar? Any speculations as to the reason?

#2 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:51 pm

Try swapping MPCI wireless cards between the 2 machines.

zhenya · #3 Post by **zhenya** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 8:35 am

Thanks, I did this, and it is in fact the Intel card that is to blame. I actually have two of these Z61t's, and they both have similar wireless behavior. So far I've also found the driver for this card to be less than stellar. It often won't connect to the access point without disabling/enabling or power cycling the adapter first, including when coming out of standby. I imagine I'll be replacing this with an Atheros card in short order, which has been fantastic on the Z60t.

#4 Post by **Harryc** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 8:38 am

You're welcome. Better performance by the Atheros wireless cards (over Intel) has been reported for quite some time here and elsewhere.

PPLepew · #5 Post by **PPLepew** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:32 am

My Z60t has same behavior.
I went to Atheros Website and got lost.
Can someone give me some hint about which mini-PCI card I should use in my Z60t, and where to find it.

PDX28 · #6 Post by **PDX28** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 4:26 pm

I had exactly the same experience quite some time ago. Dropped connections every 5 minutes, no connection at all (even right in front of the AP). All this was resolved when I changed the Intel card with the IBM Atheros one. Since then I always had and have a rock solid connection.

Quite a frustrating experience but an easy solution. 100% hardware related.

zhenya · #7 Post by **zhenya** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:59 am

PPLepew - Don't bother with the Atheros site - you'll just want to purchase the card directly from lenovo. I can't give you the part number, but I do know that my z60t model 2511-e6u had the part you want. That machine has phenomenal wireless reception - often showing twice the signal strength of other machines. That's certainly the case compared to my z61t with the Intel card. I'll be ordering an Atheros card for this one shortly.

cpascu01 · #8 Post by **cpascu01** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:00 pm

I've had bad wireless signal with my Intel card, but found that it was improved when I updated my driver.

uberT · #9 Post by **uberT** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:12 pm

I just bought a re-furb'd Z60T. It sounds like this a common problem. I'm not looking forward to it.

Very poor signal strength from Intel/Pro wireless on z61t

Very poor signal strength from Intel/Pro wireless on z61t

What card to use?

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