Aspire 5633 WLMi: Replacing the wifi card

Hi.

I own an old Acer Aspire 5633. I've been replacing bits here and there through the years and it is still serving me well.

The laptop came with a b/g Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG wifi card. I modded the laptop back in the day and added a pigtail to use and external SMA antenna. It is working well, but I want to stick an n-capable card into it just for the extra speed, and recently I have bought a nice tiny Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200.

It doesn't seem to be able to work in this laptop. I use both Windows and Linux, and both recognize the card and install the drivers. I know that the card works because I have tested it in my other laptop (Acer Aspire 8930G).

The issue seems to be that the hardware radio switch in the front of the computer gets stuck in the lock state with this new card. Operating it has absoultely no effect and the led orange that lits when the wifi is activated is off. Windows shows just no networks, and Linux complains that the network is down. Running "rfkill list" in Linux (Debian Wheezy) shows it is hardware locked:

I've tested also the Intel WiFi Link 5100 from the 8930G and the behavior is the same. I thought of a card whitelisting issue, but back in the day, when wifi auditing worked pretty much only over Atheros based chipsets, I think I used a different card in this laptop, so I'm pretty sure it is not a whitelisting issue.

The question is: Is there any software or hardware hack that will allow me to use my new Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 in this laptop. Modded BIOS perhaps? Insulating pins? It is possible to just leave the radio always on? I don't care if I can't switch off.

TIA.

 

I forgot to say that, with the 3945 back in the laptop, everything is working as usual, including the radio on/off switch. That's why I thought about whitelisting in the first place.

The problem is just getting the radio on/off switch to work with the new card.

 

White-listing is not an issue with Acers- it's never been employed in a single Acer computer.

There is a pin that has to be isolated with tape which will make the card to be always-on.
Excuse me for not pointing you to the exact pin but I've never had to do this mod myself so I don't know which one is it, so you may google it yourself instead of me doing it and pretending I've known this from the very beginning

 

According to this, it is pin 13 the one to be isolated. It has be to be covered from both sides or one will be enough?

It looks like it will be very tricky, as the pins are really small.

 

Scratch this. It is for Mini PCI. For Mini PCI-E it would be pin #20, according to this

I'm still wondering why it works for the stock card an not for other cards. Wouldn't it be the same?

 

In theory it should be but it doesn't hurt to try.

 

I did and failed. That's why I posted.

 

Ok. It is finally working.

It was indeed pin #20 the culprit of the radio being off. I have seen some misleading infos on its exact location on the card, and the clearest image I've found about it is this:



I managed to place a piece of insulating tape over it on the 6200, plugged it on the 5633 and it effectively removed the hardware lock. Rfkill output looked as this:

It looked like a big winrar. The system didn't complain about radio being off anymore, but the card wasn't detecting a single network. It was deaf both in regular and in monitor mode.

So I took the Intel 5100 from the 8930G, taped over the pin #20 and stuck it in the 5633. Now it is working nicely and will remain there. The 6200 is now on the 8930G.

On the 5633 the card is working, but the radio on/off switch and the "radio on" led don't work. I'll live with it. On the 8930G, everything works, including radio on/off switch and "radio on" led.

BTW, I've just found that the two internal antennas of the laptop give better signal than just one internal antenna + external regular 5 dbi antenna (through SMA). I have still to test it with a couple of 20 dbi planar antennas I own, but it has surprised me a lot. This is probably why the 6200 wasn't detecting any networks, but I'm not going again through all the hassle of switching cards just to confirm it.

Edit: Just for the record, the tape has to be placed only over one side. Every side has its own set of pins.