Thinkpads Forum

looking to order T430 with 6300 wifi, somehow there is discussion on notebook forum reporting loosing card as coming out of stand-by. Is anybody here experiencing the problem. apparently going with 6203 is the only solution so far but this is 2x2 antenna card.
Anyways if this is the only solution how significant it would be compared to 6300 3x3 antenna card , I mean in terms of distance from router, etc. to connect to.
Thanks for any input.
BTW; Lenovo support sucks compared to former IBM, should i pick one year on site +priority technical? it is only some $35 extra?. I believe anything defective (hardware) should burnt-out even sooner than a year.

I have the Intel Centrino 6300 card in my T420 - it doesn't have the same issues that some folks are encountering with this card in the T430. That said, it's a fine card.

However, compared to the Intel 6205 - which is up to 300 Mpbs, the 6300 is up to 450 Mbps *if* you use it in dual band mode (which requires a compatible wireless router with 2.4 and 5.0 ghz bands). You already noted the difference in terms of the number of antennas.

My personal opinion would be to go with the 6205 and call it good enough and avoid known issues with the 6300 / T430 combo. You'll get very nice performance from the 6205, my neighbor has that card in his Thinkpad.

Best of luck...

thanks Wolfman, I'm going to take your suggestion
any advice on warranty / support question?
thanks

Sure, I've had 5 Thinkpads myself, one for my wife, 2 for my brother and his family. Of the 6 in my house, we bought extended warranties (3 years) on 2 of them and had 1 year warranties on the others. We never (knock on wood) used any of those warranties. My brother used the warranty on one of his machines for a motherboard replacement (that was likely related to being plugged into an outlet during a thunderstorm without a surge suppressor).

Spending the $35 for an upgrade to onsite warranty will probably give you some piece of mind, and might let them replace a number of pieces without shipping in the machine (although you still may have to ship it in for some things). In my brothers case, he got a shipping box the next day, mailed it in, and less than a week later he had it back with a new motherboard.

Going beyond the 1 year warranty is a personal decision, we have a couple times, but more often than not, we haven't. Given the volume of parts of eBay, the hardware maintenance manual and detailed information on how to disassemble / reassemble, you may choose to just get the 1 year + onsite upgrade for $35 and go it alone. However, if you spend $2000 on your new machine, a $175 upgrade (when on sale) to 3 years + accident protection might be worthwhile. My machine spends 99% of it's life in a dock on my desk, so the accident protection isn't an attraction for me, but might be for you.

Good luck either way.