Thinkpad T41 and intel 2200 wireless miniPCI

[spkack]

roedi and mips:

Did you guys come up with anything on the R32? I have been trying to use an IBM branded Intel 2200BG in my R32 with no luck even after the CMOS hack. There does not seem to be any additional information anywhere on this, and I'm not comfortable with the BIOS mods.

 

[madphysicist]

have some info that might help with figureing out the LED issue

here is what i have.

T41p/t42p MB with the fire gl gpu

i hare 3 wireless cards.
IBM branded 2100B
IBM branded Atheros AB card
Intel branded 2200bg

the 2100 card is allowed by y bios, and he LED works.
the other two card are not allowed by y bios, so i had to use the no-1802 file.
after 1802, the atheros card works and so does the LED
the 2200bg card also works but no LED.

Also, i did not have to hack any of the IBM files to get these cards to work
and the fn+F5 keys do turn off the antenea.

mp

 

[madphysicist]

more info on the LED
I have traced the connections from the mpci connector to the inverter card.
pins 11 and 13 go dirrectly to the inverter.

when the LED is off, both pins 11 and 13 are being pulled up to 3.3V
when the LED is on, Pin 13 is being pulled to ground and pin 11 remans at 3.3V

some more observations.
While booting up with my non IBM card, pin 11 was being held low(ground) and
pin 13 was beng held high (3.3V)
once the computer had gotten past the windows splash screen, the levels changed.
Pin 11 went high and pin 13 went to 2.6V. This makes me think that pin 11 is fine, and beng driven properly. Pin 13 i a not sure about. Either it needs a pull down resistor, so that when the line isnt being driven, it goes low and the LED lights up, or that the output of the chip just isnt doing anything. Need more information.

mp

 

[mips]

I never heard from roedi again.

I did however figure out that if you corrupt the BIOS there is no simple fix for it. Besides sending it to IBM for a board swap you can also build a little electronic circuit to interface to the BIOS eeprom to reprogram it.

http://www.ja.axxs.net/unlock/
http://www.notebook1.ru/eeprom_en.html

 

[redingo]

I tweaked my thinkpad R40 lately with no-1802.exe and used my Intel 2200bg happily.
After about a week the system board of my R40 died. The system just went off while it was standing on my desk doing nothing (WLAN disbled by software). From that moment i could not power it up again (also no battery charging, no LEDs)...

Now I wonder if the hardware malfunction has something to do with the Intel WLAN-card. Or is it just coincidence?
Does anybody have similar experiences? (i hope not)

 

[spkack]

Thanks, mips.

Yeah, I found that out about the BIOS a while ago - the hard way. I've been working on this for a few weeks and finally just bought a used IBM part on fleabay so that I can get my R32 working.

I've applied the no1802 fix to A31, R40 and T42 with no problems, and the R30 accepts the non-IBM part fine without the no1802 fix, but for some reason the CMOS must be different in the R32. I can't even get the R32 to accept a different IBM mini pci wireless card except the specific ones that are called for in the hardware maintenance manual. What a difficult company to do business with :|. . .I've totally gone away from them for new purchases, but it won't hurt IBM - they don't own their PC division any longer. They've been great from an enterprise software perspective but their hardware division has always been a problem for me - even on the intel based servers and mid-range stuff.

 

[spkack]

redingo,

I've been running the R40 with no1802 and intel 2200bg for a couple weeks with no issues. I'd bet there's something else going on. You can try taking the battery out and unplugging it, let it sit for five minutes then plug it back in (without the battery) and see if it fires up. If not, then a service call may be in order if it's still under warranty. If it does post without the battery, it may be a problem with the battery itself.

 

[mips]

spkack,

I think their products are very good I just dont like their whitelist policy !! If I could afford it I would have got and IBM/Lenovo instead of my HP. The HP also has the whitelist issue.

This whitelisting practise should be illegal. I do NOT live in a country governed by FCC regulation and never will. Maybe it is time for something like a international class action lawsuite...

 

[Skygee]

I have a R32 Thinkpad, and so... having same trouble as Roedi...
I've tried every thing, and manage to boot with the card by changing the eeprom content like this :
20 42 86 80 01 27 86 80 --> 73 38 60 12 06 04 68 16
as wrote Roedi this seems to be one of the accepted Wlan card for the R32
( I didn't manage to extract myself the bios of my laptop ) because it works....

After that i changed all the Intel files of the real driver with this related information :

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_4220&SUBSYS_27018086 -> PCI\VEN_1260&DEV_3873&SUBSYS_04061668

so that I "create" a driver for my "IBM" card....
windows install ok...
But now I'm stuck with windows XP giving "error code 10" on the device...

What went wrong.... ?

May be it's impossible...

nb : and I screwed up a card while playing in the eeprom...

 

[pbogdanovic]

I have a ThinkPad R51 without WiFi so please help with the following:

- Does it still have an integrated antenna, although the WiFi card is not installed?
- What would you suggest in terms of signal reception quality - MiniPCI or PCMCIA?

I've heard PCMCIA offers much better alternatives for having better reception - is this true?

Thanks,
Alex

 

[JDizzle]

Hey guys I have a Compaq V2000 and I'm trying to use the Atheros 5006XS card. So far, everything I've tried has not worked...

When I put in the command line "#iwconfig " it says no wireless extensions...

I also tried following this article http://www.dagarlas.org/stuff/computing/article0001.php but there are a few parts that are different than what I'm getting.

The first step says..

The first step is to get Broadcom 4318 IDs, and an lspci -nv can do the work; here is the output

I however do not have a brodcom or any other card inside of my laptop right now so I can't get an id at all. I figured that part wasn't too important though so I continued on. In the third step it says...

root@electron:~# ethtool -e ath0
Cannot get EEPROM data: Operation not supported

When I enter that command I get the reply..

Cannot get driver information: No such device.

After this I get totally lost and cannot do very much because I'm a complete newbie to Linux. I'm currently using a Knoppix disk to do this and I've never actually used Linux before so if you could please help me I'd appreciate it very much. Thank you very much..

 

[InSuboRdiNaTioN]

I have a T40 with a newly installed 2200BG card (of the Dell flavor). The no-1802 patch worked great, but I can't get the drivers to work for the life of me. When I try to install the Intel ones, it tells me that no supported devices are found... when I install them manually, it tells me that the Device Could not be Started, and fails to work. Seems that Dell doesn't have drivers on their site, just documentation. Naturally, the IBM drivers won't work either.
Anyone have any suggestions?

Edit: Nevermind, turns out the eBay vendor incorrectly listed this as a 2200BG, when in actuality it is a 2100.

 

[Sxotty]

So I have a HP ze2000z

I am trying this, but Knoppix #ethtool -e ethX I get zeros only... I see others have had a similar problem, is there anyway to fix this? I really would appreciate the help as the card from HP is $114.00 which is scandalous.

On the HP website someone says he "interrupted" the loading of knoppix. What does this mean? How does one do it?

What I tried which failed was taking out my regular HDD, putting in one w/o windows so it would not boot. Turning computer on, putting Wireless card in, then putting knoppix CD in. Knoppix loaded, but I ended up in the same situation as before, so what is he talking about? Did he do it at the boot screen? Anyone know?

 

[solley]

Hi,

I've read much of it, and its way too techie for me...

I've installed the 2200BG from intel, my number is 2701...

I did the hex edit for Qcon and it works... but i can't get the FnF5 to work... I can't turn on/off my wireless card via the FnF5 button...

when i press turn off, it still stays as turned on... and only my msn will log out... everything else is still connected to the internet...

PLEASE HELP!!!!
Solomon

 

[simon79]

Now i have also a problem with the Intel 2200.
I have a Notebook Acer Travlemate 800LCI, with Windows xp sp2. The MiniPci card i have installed with the last driver "Intel Pro Wireless 2200BG 9.0.4.8", the Led work and also the Card but i don?t can connect to my Wlan Router Netgear DG834G. The Notebook sees the AP.
I try 5 day, whit this card. I think that the card have a problem. The Firmware of the Router is up to date.
Someone can help me please, whit this problem

Greets

 

[LittleNo]

since here are many folks who have done this patch-deal with the IBM Notebooks, maybe someone can help me:

i have two R40 ThinkPads, with an empty miniPCI slot. So i bought two Gigabyte GN-WI01GS Cards for them and wanted to use them with the no-1802 patch.

The curious thing is: in one of the two Notebooks it works, in the other it doesn't. So i compared the BIOS and Embedded Controller versions, where i noticed that the not working one has the newest (1.30), and the other has 1.18. So i put the same versions to the not-working one, but with no success.

But theres still a difference i can see: After pressing the Access IBM Button at bootup, to select a boot device, i get a graphical menu at the working notebook, but at the not-working i get a text-menu. Does anybody know why theres this difference? both systems are exactly the same 2723-QG2, and even the first numbers of the serials are identical. But i guess, behind that matter with the two different boot menus, there is the solution to get the no-1802 patch working even on the second system.

 

[wankus]

hi guys, thanks god i found this forum and this thread. i recently bought intel 2200 b/g minipci card for my T41 and ofcourse encountered 1802 error.
but thanks to you it was piece of cake.
i found very good source for ready no-1802 boootable cd iso:
http://www.command-tab.com/2006/02/26/unauthorized-wireless-cards/
very good stuff.

and also - regarding those changes with hex editor - with latest drivers dor intel 2200 FROM IBM site!! and latest thinkvantage access connections - you don;t have to make any changes no more! great.

the LED is not working but that's not a problem (for me) ;-)

rafal

 

[Gatchie]

Hi,

Anyone please... I need help about this wireless card I installed. My laptop model is HP/Compaq NC4000. The card's brand name is TP-Link and model is TL-WN861N. The driver is oem19.inf and athw.sys. It works in the Windows XP and I can even go to Internet and surfs around. Bcoz I plug the card in standby mode sleep and wake up the laptop and detected the card and asking for driver and I installed it. This only works to bypass the BIOS on after first boot before going to the Windows Operating System (Windows XP I'm using).

I have the knoppix Version 5.3.1 (is got its own Windows OS) to program it and another is Hex Editor for Windows use.

My problem is during the first boot on after boot of my laptop when the Wireless N card got detected it shows the error message and halt the system which is:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"104-Unsupported Wireless Network Device Detected.
System halted.power off system,remove device & restart."[/FONT]

I know you ladies and gentlemen that you can help me what to do and I'm so proud of you about that. But I really needed help badly how to find out the HEX EEPROM value on PCI\VEN, DEV, and SubSytem value or how to get the sample like this on my wireless card as sample as shown below:


Now all that you need to do is write to the eeprom. If your card is from Europe:

#ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x2200 offset 0x8 value 0xf6
#ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x2200 offset 0x9 value 0x12
#ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x2200 offset 0xa value 0x3c
#ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x2200 offset 0xb value 0x10

If it is from the US:

ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x2200 offset 0x8 value 0xf5
ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x2200 offset 0x9 value 0x12
ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x2200 offset 0xa value 0x3c
ethtool -E eth0 magic 0x2200 offset 0xb value 0x10

So that I can write on the HEX or the EEPROM when going to the BIOS and write and update the BIOS. This is my first time.

Is anyone there can help me? Also what command line on the Knoppix and the HEX either way which one that I'm 100% not going to get mixtakes? Please, I needed help....

 

[Gatchie]

I needed help also on how to remove that dreaded error messages which is this:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"104-Unsupported Wireless Network Device Detected.
System halted.power off system,remove device & restart."[/FONT]

on my laptop HP Compaq NC4000. I needed help on this.