X200 with Intel 5300 wireless card question

I opened up my X200 which was ordered with intel 5300 wireless card, but rather than having 3 antenna wires connected to the card, it only have two (TR1 and TR2). I couldn't find the third antenna wire for the wireless card.

FYI my one has WWAN option, so it have 2 wires reserved for that. Also i have the integrated camera.

So my question is to those X200 owners with intel 5300 wireless card, do you have 2 wires connected or 3 wires?

P.S. i have another X200 which came with no WWAN and the intel 5100 card, it only have 2 wires as expected. My friend's one with 5300 got three wires.

 

I believe I had three black wires, but only one was connected to the WiFi card. The other two were taped down next to the card. There was also a gray wire attached to the card. Four in total I guess.

 

i found out that with the integrated camera, only 2 wires are available for wireless card, so ordering the Intel 5300 is a waste of money.

IBM Tech did not know this and it took him around 1 hour of digging, but there was no official information in regard to this setup in their database.

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Thanks Zaz for coming back on this. I shouldn't have opted for the 5300 card when i selected the integrated webcam, but now it is put to good use in my T400, so it still worked out in the end.

 

yeah that's what i thought too when i ordered the x201. they didn't stop you if you ordered a 6300 with a webcam,

 

which is stupid.

 

Yeah, I made that comment a while ago (5300 worthless on the X200 w/webcam). Note, this does NOT apply to the tablets as they can have 3×3 WLAN, 2×2 WWAN, and the webcam.

 

the 5300 works perfectly fine with only two antennas.   if you aren't using high-speed N then it really doesn't matter.   the outside edge of the X200's LCD cover is meant to allow improved signal transmission anyway so you shouldn't have any degradation issues.

like jon said, if you need an X series with a webcam and all three antennas then you'll need either an X200T/X201T or X300/X301.

 

By worthless I simply meant that the advantage over the 5100 was slim to none with only two antennas.

 

How about differences in architecture?

Does the 5300 with 2 antennas perform better than a similiar 5100 with 2 antennas as well?

From my observation and readings, I seem to have the perception that the 5100 does not perform as well as the 5300, with constant dropouts and such..

 

but if the third antenna isn't used then is there any difference in terms of speed or coverage between the 5300 and 5100?

 

none whatsoever.   each would be limited to 300 Mbps (if supported by the router).

 

erik is there any software to measure the wireless strength and data throughput?

 

given the variables involved here, it would be difficult to make an accurate benchmark.   since everyone has different environments, benchmark results couldn't reasonably be shared in public.   everyone would question why one person could get 300 Mbps and another only 120 Mbps, not thinking about the fact that their router, distance, environment, wireless card, wireless antenna array, ambient temperature, air density, humidity, and time of day (ie: gravitational pull from the moon) all affect radio waves.

...and that's the short answer.

my test has always been the caveman method: check the windows wireless network status for a 5-bar connection, note the connection speed, and try to transfer a GB worth of files to see how long it takes with a stopwatch.

in testing the 5100 and 5300 in my X61s, X200T, and X301 with both two and three wires connected, i couldn't tell a difference between them.   my router only does 300 Mbps N anyway so the third wire only gets me a small amount of signal strength at further distances.

 

I found a slight improvement in transmit throughput with the 5300 in my x200T (receive throughput was unchanged). Details in the 802.11 N link in my sig.