if_wpi is all kinds of broken

[Kevin Oberman]

> Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 21:26:42 +0200
> From: Christian Walther <cptsalek at gmail.com>
> Sender: owner-freebsd-stable at freebsd.org
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On 17 May 2010 17:05, Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, 17 May 2010, Dominic Fandrey wrote:
> >>[...]
> 
> > The ipw card in my T42 is the older mini-PCI (no "e").
> 
> Yes, and replacing this card is a problem, because the wireless card
> in many IBM Thinkpad Laptops have a custom firmware, and the cards ID
> is listed in the laptops BIOS. It won't work with any card not listed
> there. There are ways to either flash the cards firmware or the BIOS
> list, but I don't think that it's worth it.

Assuming the the Atheros you are installing is one that IBM/Lenovo used,
it will work fine. The 5212 in the mini-PCI format was sold by IBM for
the t-40, T-42, and T-43 laptops and works fine. Other cards will
probably not work in the T-42.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751