Suggestions on T21 Wireless card

[helmet4000]

Hello all,

I just purchased a T21 over the weekend and I am wondering if anyone can suggest a compatible wireless card? The specs are 800mhz PIII cpu, 40gb HDD, 256mb RAM, and OS is Win2K.

Thanks in advance,
Tom

[Musti]

Hello and Welcome to the Forums, helmet! I hope you'll become as addicted as we all are (But we deny it, no worries).


T21 does not officially support internal wireless...though you might want to check this thread out:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=9458


You have the PCMCIA card option (for the slots to the left/underside of your TAB, CAPSLOCK, Shift and Fn key), and luckily, most wireless cards are very cheap these days. You might be able to get a wireless card for around $15, if not cheaper.

As they are all standard, it all comes down to a soup of personal preference, whatever's on sale, and whatever has highest ratings.

I would personally suggest Linksys, Netgear and D-link, in that order.

Your running 2k might make things a bit harder to configure, but I am sure you'll find the support you want here.

[helmet4000]

Thanks for your assistance. I don't mind the external cards and I will try to find one along the lines of your suggestions.

This forum is a treasure trove of information on Thinkpads. I am very happy to have purchased now two of them and I hope to keep them running for years to come with help from this board.

[tfflivemb2]

For the record, I added an Intel BG2200 to my T21....just waiting for a replacement LCD cover, so that I can install my antenna.

I didn't have any errors...though it might have been nice to use a Wireless b/Modem mini-pci card instead...

[clayton.bigsby]

For the record, I added an Intel BG2200 to my T21....just waiting for a replacement LCD cover, so that I can install my antenna.

I didn't have any errors...though it might have been nice to use a Wireless b/Modem mini-pci card instead...

I like to learn more about this upgrade. Is the replacement LCD cover from a T23? Also, does replacing the stock mini pci card with a wifi pci disable both the modem and wired ethernet?

[helmet4000]

Win2K was tricky with wireless and I found a copy of XP Pro I had that was not being used and installed that instead. Wireless is easily detected.

Thanks for your help!

[Musti]

Win2K was tricky with wireless and I found a copy of XP Pro I had that was not being used and installed that instead. Wireless is easily detected.

Thanks for your help!

What did you end up buying, and for how much? You know, for forum archival purposes

[asiafish]

I'm a huge fan of the 3Com "X-Jack" wireless PC cards. They are the only ones that don't have a plastic brick sticking out the side of the laptop when not in use. They also have good reception, making them 9.9/10 a built-in wireless solution, with the only downside being the lost PC slot.

I use them in all of my laptops that lack built in, including a pair of X22s and a recently sold T23.

[helmet4000]

Past weekend bid on and won T21. $217 w/shipping (hopefully did ok pricewise, little impulsive on my part). It has p3 800mhz, 256mb, 40gb hdd, DVD-ROM. No OS, but win2k COA. Came with docking station and two AC adapters. T21 was in excellent condition, looked like it was cleaned up nicely and/or rarely used by previous owner.

I installed Win2K using COA, but had some trouble getting wireless to work. Didn't want to mess around too long and I found a Win XP Pro upgrade that I was not using and installed that instead. Purchased wireless card from Wal-Mart and works well. My university has Symantec Corporate Anti-Virus for free so I put that on and did all the Win XP updates. Bios was updated already when it shipped. MS Update found 4 driver updates that I installed.

My upgrade plan is:

1. Replace DVD-ROM with combo CDRW/DVD-ROM.
2. Replace 256mb with two sticks (i have not yet checked if it has 2 x 128 or 1 x 256). I ordered a 256mb stick off of Ebay already. If it is 2 x 128 then I will have 384mb for a while until I look for another 256...haven't checked under the hood yet. I guess I could just go to Powerleap.com and their system lookup could tell me.

I noticed another thread on here about upgrading the P3 to 1.0ghz. Will probably try to do that in the future when I find a deal on the appropriate CPU.

[FunkyRes]

I use an Atheros based card (AT&T Plug & Share - though I don't know if current AT&T are atheros) because of how good the drivers are in Linux (madwifi). They do taint the kernel, but they work very well. 802.11g

[furiousmonkey]

I use a a netgear USB wireless connection. Sometimes I run in directly in the back of my T21 and other times I connect it through my PCMCIA USB 2.0 card either way the advantage of this is that you can use the adapter on any laptop and also a PC as well.