[Fwd: Re: Need Opinions on 3945ABG Wireless Card]

[DW]

Thanks, in the meantime, it seems prudent to pick up ath card/Thinkpad 
802.11a/b/g mini-pci (for those interested, part # 40Y7026).

The T60 does had 2 slots; one for either the 3945 or 11abg wireless card 
and a second slot that will either be empty or have the Verizon Wireless 
WAN card (which I understand has no FreeBSD support, but I don't care).

Did some more research today, and it seems like an ath card is the way 
to go, 3945 support or no; these are also discussed on 
formus.thinkpads.com (http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=25430), 
and another compelling argument is some benchmarking between the two. 
While not scientific or definitive, some anecdotal evidence that the 
atheros works better in a weak signal environment than the Intel cards, 
and also runs cooler than the Intel cards.

Just thought I would share that; something to think about.

The only additional bit that I have to offer is that it is no longer as 
easy to install mini-pci cards (or RAM for that matter) then it was on 
the earlier thinkpads. Before you could just flip the laptop over, 
remove a screw, and access the slot. Now you have to remove 5 screws 
from the belly, remove the battery, flip it over, carefully remove the 
palm rest w/ the touchpad just to install extra RAM, then additionally 
lift up the keyboard (which isn't that big a deal if you get the first 
step of removing the palm rest). It's not terribly difficult, but it 
isn't so easy to re-attach the palm rest when you're finished. I think I 
might have botched the cheap plastic tabs that hold the bezel in place, 
and now there some noticeable give at the seams. I have unlimited 
accidental repair warranty, so I might send it back to set things 
straight once things settle down.

But when I buy the other Thinkpads, I think I am going to pay a few $ 
extra to have the reseller install the extra ram and swap the wireless 
cards.

Oh, that's another thing -- if you customize your own Thinkpad on 
Lenovo's site, you can choose the atheros card as an alternate right 
there. But if you buy from a reseller, you get what you get, whatever 
model flavors they have. And they don't always have the tech staff to 
know what exact card is in there. If you know exact T60 model number 
you're looking at buying, I would check w/ IBM/Lenovo tech support to 
find out. I already blew away WinXP, so I had remove the bezel and 
keyboard just to verify that I did, in fact, have a 3945.

Sorry for the long-winded post, but hopefully this will same some folks 
some time trying to figure this stuff out like I had to.

> 3945 support is on my todo list unless someone else picks it up.  No
> ETA.  If you want a card that works now then you might swap in an ath
> card.  Can't recall if a t60 has a cardbus slot--if it does you could
> just get something cardbus-based until there is 3945 support.