Slow Atheros 91P7301

[BruceDickinson]

My newly installed Atheros 91P7301 card in my newly completed T40/R51 hybrid is running at only 60% of the throughput of my Intel 2200bg cards in my T42 and T30. I can't figure out why.

I thoroughly uninstalled all the old network adapter drivers on the T40/R51 and installed the correct drivers for the ethernet & wireless. Windows says I'm getting an excellent signal and am connected for the full 54mbps throughput. The power saving mode is off. I've never run Access Connections on any of my computers.

The machine seems to work fine and the only apparent problem with the Atheros adapter is that it's slow.

Thanks for any light you can shed. -Rich

[lukee]

Do you have a latest BIOS applied?

[BruceDickinson]

Do you have a latest BIOS applied?

The BIOS isn't the latest, but the change logs show only minor changes for the two subsequent releases. The embedded controller program is the latest.

[Harryc]

91P7301 is a ThinkPad 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI adapter from a T42. Assuming that you are running XP, here is the correct driver - http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67214
Uninstall the current driver first ...

[BruceDickinson]

91P7301 is a ThinkPad 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI adapter from a T42. Assuming that you are running XP, here is the correct driver - http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67214
Uninstall the current driver first ...

That's the driver I've been using. For good measure, I uninstalled and reinstalled, but no luck.

[RealBlackStuff]

Here are a few Atheros drivers for you to try over Xmas!
ftp://lizzi555.dyndns.org/Download/WLAN/Atheros/

[BruceDickinson]

Thanks, RBS. I will give those a shot when I'm back from holiday travels.

[GACrabill]

91P7301 is a ThinkPad 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI adapter from a T42. Assuming that you are running XP, here is the correct driver - http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67214
Uninstall the current driver first ...

That's the driver I've been using. For good measure, I uninstalled and reinstalled, but no luck.

That's the driver that I used in my T40 for almost a year before I discovered that it was not the correct one .... it is for an Atheros-I.

This driver is for the Atheros-II that I had upgraded to and the driver works perfectly in my T40 with XP and an Atheros-II card :
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-70480

[BruceDickinson]

That's the driver that I used in my T40 for almost a year before I discovered that it was not the correct one .... it is for an Atheros-I.

This driver is for the Atheros-II that I had upgraded to and the driver works perfectly in my T40 with XP and an Atheros-II card :
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-70480

GACrabill--Thanks. When I first installed the card, I tried the driver you've linked to (7ywc54ww.exe). If fact, this is the package that's linked to for this card from Lenovo's R51 drivers and software page. The installation page for the driver said it was for a mini PCI express card. When my card didn't work at all using that driver, I assumed that this driver package was not the right one and that Lenovo had erroneously linked to it. But maybe the card didn't work at that point because of some other reason.

In any event, I uninstalled the 7ywc54ww driver and moved on to the package linked to from both the T40/T41 & T42 drivers and software pages (77wc39ww.exe). Both the 7ywc54ww and 77wc39ww download pages list the R50 series as supported systems. The 77wc39ww driver worked, but throughput was slow.

I'll look forward to working this out when I get back to my machine.

[BruceDickinson]

Update: Long story short...I've tried lots of different drivers and none seem to make any difference in the throughput speed.

But maybe I found the answer to the problem. Perhaps this card cannot do 54 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz band--my router's band. The "wifi certified" sticker on the card looks like the one in this picture...

http://www.diyking.co.kr/xe/files/attac ... G_2547.JPG

The sticker seems to indicate that the card can do 54 Mbps only in the 5GHz band.

By comparison, the following Dell mini PCI card has a "wifi certified" sticker that indicates that it does 54 Mbps in both the 2.4 & 5 GHz bands. (See image at the end of the .pdf.)

http://www.dell.com/downloads/us/produc ... 0_1450.pdf

Do you think that this explains the problem?

Thanks as always. -Rich

[BruceDickinson]

Two other 91P7301 cards I recently tested also performed at 60% of the throughput rate of my 2200bg cards. This pretty much rules out the possibility that any of the cards is defective.

I think only two explanations for the slow throughput remain.

1) Something is funky in the relationship between my router and the Atheros cards. (I've played around with the router settings, but to no avail.)

2) These Atheros cards are simply inferior to the 2200bg in terms of throughput capability. Given that the specific Atheros cards I have were all manufactured in early 2004, maybe it's not too surprising.

All in all, I guess the second explanation is the most likely.

After getting the same results with multiple drivers, two different Thinkpads, a fresh OS install, and three different 91P7301 cards, I guess it's time to give up and get another 2200bg card. It seems like a shame though since I had heard lots of good things about the Atheros cards.

Thanks for everyone's help.

[RealBlackStuff]

Time to dump them: http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... 32&t=76767
Get some more 2200BGs.

[GACrabill]

Time to dump them: http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... 32&t=76767
Get some more 2200BGs.

Or try the Atheros II card : 93P4262.

[BruceDickinson]

Old topic -- but just for reference, I switched to an Atheros II a/b/g card (39T0081) and throughput is much better than with the Atheros I (93P7301) that was running so slow for me. In fact, the Atheros II is a little faster than the 2200bg's I'd been using for a long time.

Best of all, the signal and throughput stability of the Atheros II is much better for me than with the 2200bg. FWIW, I'm running Linksys WRT54G routers--which some people say are wonky w/ the 2200bg.

My three TP's now have the Atheros II and it's a big improvement. Hope this helps someone.