T60 wireless problems

[Ken Edmonds]

I've just bought a T60 to replace my T42 which has GPU issues.

It's driving me mad! It had been restored with the standard Lenovo set up and I can't get the internet connection to work properly. It will go to Google every time but the majority of other sites time out. I can't even get Firefox add-ons. It's not browser settings as it's both IE and Firefox, it's not the router as the hard wired desktop and two other wireless laptops work perfectly, three if you count the failed T42. As a network it also seems fine. I removed Symantec, which was the first problem, and I've tried it with both AVG and the Windows firewall disabled.

It's the Intel a/b/g card and I've told it not to use a - which didn't help either.

I assume it's a setting I've missed somewhere but which one?

I've got a vague memory of a similar problem on a wired network card years ago but I can't remember what caused it.

[RealBlackStuff]

Most likely you have an Intel 3945 wifi card, which is one of the worst ever made.
Replace it with a half-size MiniPCIe Intel 5100N, 6100N, 6200N or 6205N. You will also need a half-size bracket.
And you need to update your BIOS to remove the Whitelists, but after all that you'll have fast wifi.
If you want to go really "fancy", get one of these: Atheros AR5BXB112 AR9380 N card
It supports an unbelievable 450 Mbit/sec

[Neil]

OK, I'm going to go ahead and state the obvious...
Have you checked to be sure the wireless hardware switch is not in the off position?
I don't think any of your previous ThinkPads had such a switch, but the T60 does (it's on the left hand side of the front edge), so it would be easy to overlook checking it.

[dr_st]

Do you get a valid IP from the router? Can you log into the router web interface?

[Ken Edmonds]

As I said, the network is working fine, although I haven't been copying dozens of files across, just opened a couple, and I can get to Google no trouble at all. Google News works, along with some of the linked newspapers, but with few exceptions search results generally don't.

I can log on to the router but sometimes it's painfully slow.

I've just got back in and I'm about to check which network card I've got. There's a good standard one in the T42, is the T60 likely to accept it?

Edit: I've just spent 20 minutes trying to get this page to open using the T60 and given up. Three time-outs and at most half a page when it did finally connect.

RealBlackStuff was right, it's a 3945ABG card.

What is it with wireless cards and me. The T42 only had an 802.11b card in it when I bought it. Fortunately the spares machine had a better one.

[dr_st]

There's nothing wrong with a 3945ABG. I have them in at least two machines and they work just fine.

Yours might be defective, or you have a different issue.

[Ken Edmonds]

I hesitate to say it's cured but I've just updated the drivers and so far it appears to be behaving.
I'm using it to post this and it was impossible before the updates as I couldn't load the full page.