Thinkpads Forum

Hi everyone

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 0197-2NG which is mostly ok. I added an SSD a while ago which has given it a new lease of life.

But just wondering if it's possible to upgrade the wifi mini PCI-e card to one that supports 5GHz?
Something like this... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Height-Wi ... B00DRAFXI4

When opening the base to upgrade the HDD/memory it looks like the card should be easy to replace. But would I also need to upgrade the antennas to support 5GHz?

I've heard rumours that there is a hardware whitelist in some models which specifies which PCI-e devices can be connected. Is that true?
If so then I'm guessing there's no whitelisted 5GHz wifi adaptors since this laptop model is quite old now.

Thanks, B

Welcome to the forum.
Most Thinkpads (since about 2004) have a wifi whitelist (a Lenovo rip-off trick if you ask me).
Unless you find a modded BIOS, another card might not work, unless it is a Lenovo part, as listed in the HMM.
If you have only 2 antenna wires, don't worry, N will still work fine.
Instead of 5100N I would recommend the Intel 6200N

Thanks for the reply.
Ah ok. Yeah whitelisting is just annoying. I mean what's the point in using a standard expansion slot if it's not truly expandable, other than locking users in to supported models/vendors.

802.11n is totally fine, my router doesn't support ac.

Is the Intel 6200N whitelisted?
Presume the model I need to be looking at is 622ANHMW from http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... brief.html

Also I see this comes up as Centrino. Does this mean Intel chipset support is needed?
My ThinkPad Edge 13 is an AMD chipset, Turion Neo X2 processor or something (AMD laptop... never again!)

Thanks, B

You could also try the 5300N which might be on the whitelist.
I wouldn't know about the Edge's whitelist anyway, never had one and never will.
Centrino is only an Intel wifi title.
Intel chipset is not required for Intel wifi cards to work.