WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

[ratdude747]

I'm considering upgrading the Wireless in my Lenovo Ideapad P400. It presently has a Intel Centrino 2230 N + BT card...

I was thinking of upgrading it to AC...

Here's the probably noobish questions I have:

1. Do the Ideapads support non-stock cards? I know the old thinkpads sure didn't w/o hacking... And if so, would my wireless on/off controls work?

2. Does a twin antenna (I only have 2, not 3) AC card (pref. intel) with BT exist?

I don't have any half-size mini-PCIe cards to test with... so I have no idea on #1... #2 I could probably look up but am too lazy to.

[ant3202]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

hmm.....

sometimes wifi card do fail.... as long its not apple stuffs , obtaining and loading the drivers shd be OK

more or less standardize .... pin 20 for controlling the wireless on / off switch.
you can test actually, tape the pin and test, if you slide to disable radio but it still works... mean it works.

http://icelord.net/HP/pin20.2.jpg

some laptops have 3 cables catered to the antenna... check inside your laptop if there are spare cables in it.....

and some laptops have two slots, which one could be using for mobile connection (optional) another is the wifi card

[Time2Retire]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

hmm.....

sometimes wifi card do fail.... as long its not apple stuffs , obtaining and loading the drivers shd be OK

more or less standardize .... pin 20 for controlling the wireless on / off switch.
you can test actually, tape the pin and test, if you slide to disable radio but it still works... mean it works.

http://icelord.net/HP/pin20.2.jpg

some laptops have 3 cables catered to the antenna... check inside your laptop if there are spare cables in it.....

and some laptops have two slots, which one could be using for mobile connection (optional) another is the wifi card

It's different with the Thinkpads, not sure if the Ideapad is similar.

I bought a used Seirra 3G card from eBay, a Thinkpad pull. I put it in a non-Thinkpad netbook. It worked in Linux, but the account first needed to to established using a Windows application. The generic Seirra drivers didn't work, as Thinkpad had it's own USB ID embedded in the card. The Thinkpad drivers wouldn't install, because it wasn't a Thinkpad!

I went around in circles several times trying to modify the Windows drivers so that it would work. I eventually gave up and threw it in the trash (the 3G card)

[ratdude747]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

hmm.....

sometimes wifi card do fail.... as long its not apple stuffs , obtaining and loading the drivers shd be OK

more or less standardize .... pin 20 for controlling the wireless on / off switch.
you can test actually, tape the pin and test, if you slide to disable radio but it still works... mean it works.

http://icelord.net/HP/pin20.2.jpg

some laptops have 3 cables catered to the antenna... check inside your laptop if there are spare cables in it.....

and some laptops have two slots, which one could be using for mobile connection (optional) another is the wifi card

Nope, the second slot is not installed (silkscreened though) and there were only two antenna cables.

[ratdude747]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

Ended up getting an Intel 7620 AC card... I'll post more when I get it next week.

[ratdude747]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

So far no dice, as it's bitching about the card not being authorized.

Too bad the BIOS isn't available for download either... so I can't hack that.

I've thought of swapping the PCI id but that'll make drivers not install right or something...

Any suggestions? Or should I forget ever upgrading?

[ratdude747]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

Screw it.

Now I'm considering selling it...

[ratdude747]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

Found a BIOS image... no dice.

I even tried modding it... again, nothing. Tried various insyde bios guides... but I couldn't find the file I needed.

[Time2Retire]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

Boot into a Linux disk. I bet it works.

[ratdude747]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

Boot into a Linux disk. I bet it works.

Nope. I don't get to boot. The BIOS give the error and effectivly locks. You can't boot until the card is removed. Google the lenovo 1802 error to see what I mean.

I submitted a request to bios-mods forums, and included as far as I got when I tried it myself... I couldn't get the free version of ida to open the dumped rom module file that contains the error code (and I had no luck using other disassemblers).

I swear I'm never buying a lenovo again (unless it's super super cheap). If I thought I'd get a decent offer, I'd trade what I have... but I doubt anybody want's it...

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

All laptops have whitelists nowadays, and they've had them for quite a while now. It's just a matter of how easy or difficult it is to hack...

[ratdude747]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

All laptops have whitelists nowadays, and they've had them for quite a while now. It's just a matter of how easy or difficult it is to hack...

I read that among others samsung didn't.

Does anybody still make barebones laptops? I'm sure those wouldn't have this... otherwise it would defeat the purpose.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

Off the top of my head, MSI still makes barebones. But they aren't cheap.

[ratdude747]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

Off the top of my head, MSI still makes barebones. But they aren't cheap.

I see.

[shovenose]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

I don't see why you care - you're going to sell the laptop because it won't take another WiFi card? Oh, your D630 had dual band so you hate a laptop that you otherwise seem to really like except for it does not have dual band?? Hmm, let's see what's better about the P400:
-1600x900 screen
-i7 processor
-ddr3 ram
-no nvidia bug

and that's just a start Just saying, you're not making sense.

[lti]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

I don't think his other laptop had a wireless AC card. Those are fairly new.

Also, going from 1440x900 to 1600x900 isn't much of an upgrade. The hardware being newer isn't that important either since it is possible to screw stuff up in a way that makes a newer and "better" laptop slower than that "worthless" Core 2 Duo.

What's the point in the whitelist?

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

What's the point in the whitelist?

Brings money to their pocket, not someone else's, by forcing you to buy a card from them.

[ratdude747]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

Brings money to their pocket, not someone else's, by forcing you to buy a card from them.

Only in this case, there is no card offered... so you have to buy a new laptop. ****!

[ratdude747]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

I don't see why you care - you're going to sell the laptop because it won't take another WiFi card? Oh, your D630 had dual band so you hate a laptop that you otherwise seem to really like except for it does not have dual band?? Hmm, let's see what's better about the P400:
-1600x900 screen
-i7 processor
-ddr3 ram
-no nvidia bug

and that's just a start Just saying, you're not making sense.

I'll probably keep the P400... but to rebutt your point:

-The D630 had a 1440x990 Screen. The 990 made a difference compared to the 900 (when making picture-posts, it helps a bit). the 1600 isn't quite as big of an improvement over the 1440.

-The CPU is a big improvement, but the T7700 in the D630 was for most things (minus minecraft) sufficient.

-The RAM is hard to say... it probably helps but I'd have to do a lot of benchmarks to see (and that's not even in practice).

-The GPU in the D630 was a late-production 2010 chip, suppossedly not subject to bumpgate. Most 2009's and 2008/earlier chips are trouble though. However, the big improvement with the P400 is power usage and performance (since I'm not CADding), not reliability.

The Dualband part is a bummer... and AC would have been nice for future use (if I ever went gigabit at home, it would make the fileserver fly). Besides, the lack of dual band feels very consumer-ish IMHO. Dualband, at least to me, feels a lot more industrial and serious. Especially when you have dualband router and you know how to use it.

[ratdude747]

Re: WLAN Upgrade in a Lenovo Ideapad P400

-The D630 had a 1440x990 Screen. The 990 made a difference compared to the 900 (when making picture-posts, it helps a bit). the 1600 isn't quite as big of an improvement over the 1440.

Correction... they have the same vertical resolution of 900... the D630 isn't a 990... why I was thinking one was 990 and the other 900 is beyond me.