Am I unable to upgrade wireless on my T40?

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Baldy18 · #1 Post by **Baldy18** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 10:32 pm

Alright I have a Thinkpad T40 2373-72U which comes equiped with the Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI adapter.

I would like to upgrade it to the Intel PRO 2200bg Mini PCI adapter.

So I bought the adaptor and installed it and whe I booted to up I received the following error message:

Error
1802: Unauthorized network card is pugged in - Power off and remove the mini PCI network card.

There is another Thinkpad model based on the 2373-72U (2373-JU4) which is listed as wireless upgradable and can take either of these cards.

What I'm looking for, and IBM has been unable to tell me, is: How do they restrict this? and Is there a way around it?

Makes me pretty mad that I may either have to buy a new laptop or get and ugly and awkward PCMCIA card to upgrade to 802.11g.

s0larian · #2 Post by **s0larian** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 4:53 am

just use an original IBM wireless card and there will be no 1802 error.

ctbenski · #3 Post by **ctbenski** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 5:20 am

do some search on this forum, it is full of threads on this issue. Basically you only can use IBM-branded mini-PCI cards, they have put a lock in the BIOS to prevent the use of generic cards.
There is a workaround, it is called the no-1802 hack. I can email you the small DOS application that is used for this purpose and disables the BIOS check if you want. However, my t41 did not take a generic 2200 even after this operation, I ended up with blue screens and finaly bought an IBM a/b/g/.
Other people had success however, so it may be worth a shot.
My email is
ctbenski [at] o2 [dot] pl

Baldy18 · #4 Post by **Baldy18** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 6:29 am

Thanks for all the help guys. With the info given I was able to find a place to download that workaround. After I check out how risky it is I'll probably try it and let you know what happens.

Baldy18 · #5 Post by **Baldy18** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 8:51 pm

Thanks guys it worked perfectly.

ctbenski · #6 Post by **ctbenski** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 2:27 am

Glad to hear that

One thing however you may notice - using non-IBM branded cards, you may see that the Wi-Fi indicator LED under the screen is not working. It doesn't mean damage hiwever, just incompatibility in some firmware of the card.

A-Ge0 · #7 Post by **A-Ge0** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:35 pm

baldy

can you share with us which wifi card and what bios patch did you use?

Am I unable to upgrade wireless on my T40?

Am I unable to upgrade wireless on my T40?

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