Tiny review of the IBM ABGN wireless card.

I just got a hold of the IBM ABGN card and it's a huge step up from the Intel crap.

I used to get <50% signal stregth with the Intel 3945 ABG in my house unless I was next to my AP. With this card I get 100% even all the way in my backyard.

I used to have another laptop with an Atheros card and I could see my AP and 3 other in the area(can't barely even see my AP with an Intel) with Wifi card I can see the old APs and 2 new ones. I use my card set to Max Battery life and 10% transmit power (I still get 100% strength and no change in throughput).

Power usage gaged with Mobile Meter shows no increase over the Intel I'm still in the relm of 15 watts on max battery life and the same old 20 watts on normal usage.

My TP has WWAN which I don't use so I just used the 2 stock WLAN antennas and one of the WWAN ones. I picked the cable that attaches to the side bulge antenna.

If you have to pick between Intel crap and the IBM ABGN card get the IBM one, there's no question it's way better. This is one of the best upgrades for your laptop. This upgrade is really noticable, and cuts down on frustration of WLAN networking, it will always pick up a signal making your computing effortless.

 

By IBM do you mean the Thinkpad Atheros AGN card? By the looks of the website they still don't offer them since they took them off a long time ago.

Or you talk about the Intel 4965AGN wifi card? Thats the only AGN card Lenovo is offering on their website right now.

 

I was wondering about that. can you run your comparisons using NetStumbler ( http://www.netstumbler.com) for both cards? It would provide a more accurate reading as far as it goes to WiFi performance.

Thanks

 

Although Atheros/IBM wireless cards have better performance, they run slightly hotter and use slightly more battery life. Life's about tradeoffs......

 

Does the atheros/IBM wireless card have wireless B? It seems like a common sense question but people refer to it as the the thinkpad agn card, leaving out the B.

 

i'm jealous, I wish i could throw one of those cards into my laptop, but i only have two antennas

 

Mine too =[. I'm sure you could still use it... just wouldn't really have the MIMO functionality.

And to address jd1010, any G notebook card is backwards compatible with B.

 

By IBM I do mean the Atheros ABGN card. It's in no way hotter than the Intel card. I actually believe by the way I configured the card that it's actually using less power. Mobile Meter shows similar power consumption.

There really doesn't seem to be a trade off. And if there it's really worth it.

A quick run of Netstumbler shows -46dbi for the Atheros and -30dbi. That's more than a doubling in reception.