Lenovo Wifi Replacement

I recently got my T500 with a very poor signal wifi, Thinkpad BGN, a Realtek chipset. I would like to replace my Wifi card with either the Intel Wifi Link 5100 or 5300. However, I read somewhere that Lenovo specfically "whitelist" their wifi cards to only work with their laptops. I could not find any of the Intel wifi, moreover any wifi cards on the lenovo site. So, I went to hunt around in Amazon, and found several sellers.

Plus would anyone tell me what sort of card I require, since there is a difference between mini cards and the full sized card, though I do not know which one my laptop support. Here are the specs for my laptop:
http://privatepaste.com/8b0537bce0

I would like to have confirmation which one of these specific cards as posted below will work on my laptop (or the one you recommend to have):

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-533ANMMWW-Wifi-Link-5300/dp/B001CXT6NQ/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-WiFi-Li...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1262098368&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-WiFi-Li...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1262098368&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-WiFi-Li...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1262098501&sr=1-1

 

Why not call support and see what they have to say about it. Perhaps there's a fix. They do whitelist cards. Generics of the same card won't work. You might want to post over on ThinkPads.com to see if anyone's got an extra card.

 

i called them three times, and it seems taht they don't even know their cards ware whitelisted..

 

Probably cause they're told not to say I would guess.

 

would anyone confirm that, according to this seller, that it would be compatible with my laptop:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Wifi-5300...temQQimsxZ20091212?IMSfp=TL091212046002r11019

 

Typically, ThinkPad cards have the FRU printed on the card like this one. You can see on the card where it says FRU 41W1027, which is the Lenovo part number. I didn't see that on the card you linked. My guess would be they will not work. You might want to see if there's a firmware update for your router.

 

that was very helpful zaz, but i'm 100% sure that this is the Thinkpad's BNG terribleness

 

Most of the time when an ebay seller says that the card works with ibm laptop, it most likely will. If not you can always demand a refund. I suggest that you try going with that reseller.

 

How did you determine that? I've seen ThinkPad cards before and have never had any trouble with them. A router firmware update may help and it doesn't cost you anything.

The seller states it's the buyers responsibility to determine compatibility, which makes me wonder. Plus it's not a ThinkPad card and generics don't work in my experience.

 

i have another lenovo laptop which uses an intel wireless card, and it runs perfectly fine, performing well in speedtest.net and pingtest.net. plus it loads webpages in american servers like (youtube, google, yahoo, etc) consistently in a under 2 seconds of wait.

however with the current laptop with thinkpad bgn(reformattted 3 times), i still get terrible speed, sometimes a very fine speed loading webpages in 5 seconds, or taking 2minutes to load. furthermore, the results provided by speedtest.net and pingtest.net are very inconsistent and can go from, according to pingtest.net F to D to C, and one time even B.

Edit: And my router is also updated to its latest firmware

 

Hmm, judging by that maybe it's because it is the hardware's fault, and with the current warranty, maybe I can somehow get it upgrade to another wireless card(willing to pay), if they allow..

 

Call them up. The WiFi card is considered user replaceable, but I don't know if they'll send you one.

 

btw, would any wifi card that has the FRU provided by Lenovo would be compatible with the T500, or certain wifi cards can only be compatible with the brand of the thinkpad?

 

This thread can be closed now; I returned the order.