Is there a abgn mini pci card Compat. with X41?

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kunfuchopsticks · #1 Post by **kunfuchopsticks** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 3:13 am

Funny thing, just found out the router I bought a month ago is actually an N router. Always had impression in my mind of it being regular G...

Anyways, Is there a abgn mini PCI card that will fit the X41? Thanks.

kunfuchopsticks · #2 Post by **kunfuchopsticks** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:51 pm

gongo2k1 · #3 Post by **gongo2k1** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:58 pm

the first problem is resolving the 1802 error with the bios. x41 was only designed to work with 2200bg or 2915abg.
once you get past that, take a look at www.oxfordtec.com, they sell some of sparklan's atheros- and ralink-based bgn and abgn solutions for $50-$65.
i'll be buying one of these in the next week for my desktop (shuttle xpc sd11-g5) which uses mini-pci for wifi, but i'll also give it a shot in the x41 and see how it works out.

mini_g · #4 Post by **mini_g** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:23 am

Hrm, it looks like the X41 resists the 1802 workaround (Scroll up a few lines).

gongo2k1 · #5 Post by **gongo2k1** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:40 am

i'm currently running a bios on my x41 with 1802 disabled. i'm using a stock non-IBM 2915abg right now actually.

please read this thread and then send a pm to zender, he helped me resolve the 1802 error in the x41 bios.

kunfuchopsticks · #6 Post by **kunfuchopsticks** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:34 am

gongo2k1 wrote:i'm currently running a bios on my x41 with 1802 disabled. i'm using a stock non-IBM 2915abg right now actually.

please read this thread and then send a pm to zender, he helped me resolve the 1802 error in the x41 bios.

really? so the wiki is wrong saying there is no workaround.

aaa · #7 Post by **aaa** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:54 am

Someone needs to update the wiki elaborating on the new workaround for newer laptops... and make it clear that it does NOT involve no-1802 so people don't go bricking their laptops.

gongo2k1 · #8 Post by **gongo2k1** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:46 am

are people still actively updating the wiki for the 2x/3x/4x series? it seems like most of the updates are for the 6x generation and anything else hasn't been touched in at least 18-24 months.

'no-1802' can't brick a laptop since it only modifies the cmos which is easily reset by pulling the internal battery (the one used by rtc, not the main battery). of course, it doesn't work on the 4x series and newer.

zender's workaround involves modifying the bios routine so it always passes the 1802 check. there is always a certain risk involved in flashing a user-modified bios. it should always be stressed that a bios modification is only a last-resort effort.

ajkula66 · #9 Post by **ajkula66** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:04 pm

gongo2k1 wrote:

'no-1802' can't brick a laptop since it only modifies the cmos which is easily reset by pulling the internal battery (the one used by rtc, not the main battery). of course, it doesn't work on the 4x series and newer.

You're dead wrong here. There are people who destroyed perfectly good machines with this hack. And I happen to be one of them.

gongo2k1 · #10 Post by **gongo2k1** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:53 pm

no need to be touchy about it.

of course, running such a program in dos with memory managers running would be a bad idea and could quickly write the wrong bit to some erroneous address. an equally bad idea would be to execute code as root that was developed by reverse-engineering someone else's hack. it's always a good idea to fully understand what's being modified, where it's being changed, and how that change is saved.

there's always some level of risk with implementing any hack, but compared to flashing the bios with a modified image, i'm inclined to say that writing bits to the cmos is less dangerous in that there's a higher chance of recovering from that than a bad bios flash.

the problem with publishing a hack online is that a lot of people don't do the research or read the documentation before taking the plunge. even worse, the vast majority of hacks don't have ANY documentation and the author doesn't bother maintaining the utility after the fact. to further compound the issue, the risks involved are rarely fully explained and as a result, if something goes wrong, the end user has little or nothing to go on to troubleshoot the issue. the worst scenario is when the user performs a high-risk hack on their primary (and most usually, only) computer without doing ANY research and something goes wrong.

in this case, even a seemingly benign hack implemented by a seasoned forum member like ajkula can render the laptop inoperable.

ajkula66 · #11 Post by **ajkula66** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:10 pm

I had no intention of being "touchy" about anything.

Posting a definite statement like "no-1802 can't brick a laptop" in a public forum without doing at least some research on the very same forum is a somewhat irresponsible move IMHO.

There are people who know what they know, and they are people who are just Googling around for solutions without taking the time to explore all the options, and the latter portion of the public should be forewarned by those who know, that's all.

Of course, if IBM/Lenovo took the time to update their BIOS settings with newer cards, we wouldn't have to hack half the machines we do nowadays...

Once again, all of this is stricktly IMHO...

Zender · #12 Post by **Zender** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:34 pm

Actually, I didn't believe the "bricked" report on ThinkWiki much, thinking it's been made by someone who did something else wrong, but I guess that's probably not what happened to ajkula...

Still I think cmos hack is safer than BIOS update, probably with the exception of X41... but patched BIOSes tested working should pose no higher risk than official BIOS update.

mini_g · #13 Post by **mini_g** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:24 pm

gongo2k1 wrote:are people still actively updating the wiki for the 2x/3x/4x series?

I tossed in my X32's success a few days ago.

I do have to agree with the wiki needing to be updated in subjects such as these. I just don't know enough to add the finer hacks myself.

gongo2k1 · #14 Post by **gongo2k1** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 5:59 pm

i ordered a sparklan wmir 200 (abgn) from oxford tec and it finally got here today. i'm currently connected to my d-link n draft 2.0 router at 270mbps!
i'm gonna put in a third antenna tonight, and i have yet to do speed tests and such, but i thought i'd report back success so far with using this card.

EDIT: oh yeah, forgot to mention, i'm running fedora 9 on kernel 2.6.25.11, though the ralink site also has windows and mac os x drivers.

kunfuchopsticks · #15 Post by **kunfuchopsticks** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 8:57 pm

this is on your X41?

gongo2k1 · #16 Post by **gongo2k1** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 10:21 pm

yes, this is on my x41. i just finished installing an extra aerial antenna behind the lcd as well so now i'm getting 100% signal. i'm running a b/g/n router with wpa2. too bad i don't have any way to check that 5ghz works (the card is dual band).

SaberX · #17 Post by **SaberX** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:00 pm

gongo2k1 wrote:yes, this is on my x41. i just finished installing an extra aerial antenna behind the lcd as well so now i'm getting 100% signal. i'm running a b/g/n router with wpa2. too bad i don't have any way to check that 5ghz works (the card is dual band).

Nice upgrade....

I just did a MiniPCI "N" upgrade to a T41.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=65197

paolo · #18 Post by **paolo** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:16 am

sorry

hurdadurda · #19 Post by **hurdadurda** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:19 am

gongo2k1 can you tell us hot to install the third antenna or where can we get that info from ?

Is there a abgn mini pci card Compat. with X41?

Is there a abgn mini pci card Compat. with X41?

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