Thinkpads Forum

Hello.

I've got a few questions about the 770.

Is there a free Mini PCI Slot, so that I could insert a WLAN mini-PCI card?
I'm planning to insert the aerial in the Displayframe.

Anyone out there who has allready experience with this WLAN operation?

marcel

Are you the guy that posted the same question on dcsn?

There is no mini-PCI slot on the 770. Because of the slow PI I'd recommend you get a CardBus PC-Card that features DMA and therefore doesn't stress the CPU too much when the full bandwidth is used. Yet if you don't plan on transferring large amounts of data, but rather want to surf the internet and do other low-end stuff, a 16-bit card should suffice.

I particularly like the 3com XJack WLAN cards with the retractable antenna. The 802.11b 16-bit cards go for about 25-30 Euros on Ebay Germany, and Amazon Germany features the 802.11a/b/g 32-bit CardBus card for about 95 Euros including p&p. That's the lowest price I could find, other vendors usually sell it for around 115 Euros without p&p.

You could then occupy the second slot with an XJACK LAN-card, for instance, which would allow you to also connect to wired networks at home or whereever. These cards are often available in masses on Ebay for around 15 Euros and below.

http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/deta ... =3CRPAG175

http://www.3com.com/other/pdfs/products ... 400813.pdf

http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/deta ... 3CRSHPW196

http://www.3com.com/other/pdfs/products ... 400743.pdf

http://www.linux-user.de/ausgabe/2002/1 ... n/3Com.jpg

http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/free/ITPro/ ... -wlan1.jpg

http://www.berlin-shop.privat.t-online.de/xjack-5.jpg

http://www.berlin-shop.privat.t-online.de/xjack-4.jpg

You might want to read this thread.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=1432
I asked many of the same questions and haven't gotten real far with the same idea.

Rodger

I'm not sure what the other post says, but the best bang for the buck out there... Cisco 340 series PCMCIA adapter. It will flash to the latest firmware and support WPA and all that good stuff. it's 802.11b and usually runs about 30 to 50 bucks on Ebay. It's a very good card as far as range goes. I recommend it highly

Nate

ndoggfromhell wrote:I'm not sure what the other post says, but the best bang for the buck out there... Cisco 340 series PCMCIA adapter. It will flash to the latest firmware and support WPA and all that good stuff. it's 802.11b and usually runs about 30 to 50 bucks on Ebay. It's a very good card as far as range goes.

Does it have a removable antenna (and readily available antenna connectors)?

Rodger

The antenna is on the end of the PC Card, but i'd heard of people buying the PCI versions (it's actually just a PCI card with a PCMCIA adapter and the PCMCIA Card on it) and using an external antenna after removing the PCMCIA card from the PCI adapter.

Nate

That#s a little bit oftopic, but i think it is better than to open a new topic about that:

IBM Transnote has also a mini-PCI card slot, can i use a mini PCI Wlan card ?

Are they special cards, which are not compatitbale ?

Thanks