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Upgrading the wifi card on a t430 to 802.11ac
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 2:36 pm
by arunpr
I would like to know if I could upgrade the wifi card on a T430 to a 802.11ac wifi card? In particular, I wish to buy a new T430 and in due course upgrade my wifi card to Intel Dual Band Wireless 7260AC with Bluetooth 4.0 . Has anybody ventured upgrading the wifi card and if yes, has anybody ventured upgrading to an 802.11 ac card. Would the other built in components such as antenna etc be compatible. If there is a difference in the frequency at which communication happens then would I have to change other components such as the antenna too? If so would this be feasible? If any of you have done this with a desktop, please share your experience
Your answers would be very helpful to me.
Re: Upgrading the wifi card on a t430 to 802.11ac
Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 3:09 pm
by twistero
Before worrying about antennas and stuff, you should first worry about the BIOS white list for WLAN cards.
Like many ThinkPads before it, the T430 has a white list for approved internal WLAN cards. Only specific, Lenovo-branded wireless cards will function when installed in the ThinkPad; if you try to install an unapproved card, the computer will throw an error and refuse to boot.
Unlike ThinkPads before it, though, you can not flash a modified BIOS with the white list disabled on a T430. Yes, people have made these modded BIOS images, but the #30 generation ThinkPads will only flash official images because of some kind of signature verification.
So, unless Lenovo offers an 802.11ac card as factory option, or otherwise approve a 802.11ac card for the T430, you will not be able to install an internal ac card in your T430.