replacing / adding WiFi for CF-52

Hi All - This is my first post here and I want to start by thanking all the contributors. I've had a CF-50 for a while and this forum has been very useful in getting me through several updates of the hardware.

I recently purchased a very lightly used CF-52 (HF model). It was a government issue model, so had no WiFi card. Adding a new WiFi card turned out to be a piece of cake, but the various posts on this were a little sketchy, so I figured I'd post my results and hopefully save the next person a bit of time.

The main thing you need to know to add or upgrade your CF-52's WiFi card is the location. Its on the bottom of the unit. There is another mini PCIe slot under the speaker cover, but for some reason a WiFi card wont work in that slot.



To get at the mini PCIe slot on the bottom of the unit, you'll need a Torx T7 "security" bit (with a little hole in the middle). If you dont already have one and are in a hurry, Sears carries this as part of a security bit set for about 20 bucks. If you have some more time, you can find just the one you need on the web for a lot cheaper.

Dont forget to disconnect power and remove the battery before opening up the unit.

Once you have the lid off, there will be a little bridge card with two antenna connectors (or an existing WiFi card if you are replacing) Remove the antenna connectors and then remove the two screws holding it down with a #00 Philips. Install your card, replace the screws and then the antenna wires. It helps if you have a magnifying glass stand and needle nose pliers to replace the antenna wires because they dont have much slack and are a PIA to line up so that they snap in place.

I used an Intel 5100 card because that is the one that shipped with my model originally, it get pretty good reviews, and they are dirt cheap. I've been using it for about a week and it works great. Good range, no dropouts. You dont need to mask off or cut the trace on pin 20 (I believe this was an issue on some older Toughbook models).

Replace the cover, load the appropriate drivers for your card and you are good to go!

 

Welcome, and good post.

For those of us that use Toughbooks exclusively you need to re-size to max 800x600 on your images O.K?

It's a great shot by the way and shows the bios pcb there too. Also I believe it's the first time the security bit was named and numbered.

Jeff....Good show.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I rotated and cropped the image so that it fits. I was wondering what that little card was. Any idea why Panasonic would go to the the trouble of making this removable? I though the bios could be flashed. Seems like a lot of extra parts.

 

Welcome to the forum! Great post and good pic!

Panasonic makes just about everything removeable/replaceable. It's just what you have to do to get there!

 

Welcome!
Panasonic made access to the WIFi card a lot easier on the CF-52 than some of its other models! Subject to trial and error on the Torx screw!
Must say my experiences were the opposite on my CF-52C. It already had the 4965 fitted and I was hoping that the 5100 would be a decent upgrade. I was surprised to see that the 4965 had the third antenna connection.
Having fitted the 5100, I was not unduly concerned at it not being in the BIOS as that is what happened on my CF-51. However it was not functional and the drivers run out at the 4965!
I was wondering whether you used a Panasonic 5100 rather than a generic or a branded one. Not sure what the SPS signifies. Some are XXed out and some have a code. Also what operating system are you on?
Thanks!

 

I just used a generic 5100 card. Bought it on ebay for less than 10 bucks with shipping. I'm running WinXP pro, although planning to upgrade to Win7 pro.

Does your model have 3 antenna cables or was it just the card that has 3 connections? If you have 3 cables, you might be better off with the 5300, which also gets good reviews. Mine just has the 2 antenna cables, which is why I went with the 5100.

Did you load the 5100 drivers? Also, did you remove the battery so that the bios recognizes that there was a hardware change? If you did these things and the unit is still being identified as a 4965, you might want to find the 4965 drivers and either delete or rename them so the OS is forced to load the 5100 drivers.

My unit is a CF-52HF, which is a little newer - so maybe that makes a difference, although from your description it sounds like your OS is just trying to load the wrong drivers.

 

Hmmm...... It's true that the CF-51 was on XP rather than the Vista of the CF-52!
There are only the two antenna cables, but the original 4965 card had the three antenna connections. Like you I thought that the 5100 was the best upgrade for the dual antenna.
Being lazy/disappointed I did not try and load the Intel Pro Set latest drivers. From what I read the 4965/5100 used the same driver anyway.
I'll have another attempt and try what you recommend and report back!

 

Well I downloaded the latest driver and the unloved Pro Set from Intel. Removed the battery as you suggested. Replaced the 4965 with the 5100. Booted it, checked the BIOS and no Wireless is shown. It is shown correctly in the Device Manager and the driver is ok but no networks are shown and according to the Pro Set diagnostic the Radio Hardware switch is off even though the symbol is indicating that it is on and the physical switch is on. Moving the switch to off changes the symbol.
I guess its the Pin 20 mod for me! Hey ho!

 

Hmm... now that you mention it, there was one other thing that I did during the 5100 install - I went to the Panasonic driver site and downloaded the latest MISC and Wireless LAN drivers for my model. At the time, I had the 5100 card installed in the slot under my speaker cover, so it wasnt working and running these drivers didnt help - so I figured they probably werent needed. But having installed them might have made a difference when I wised up and moved the wireless card to the correct location. So it might be worth a shot to update these drivers if taping pin 20 doesnt work

My CF-52 model was originally available with a 5100 card, so it may be that the BIOS checked out the card and decided that it was OK to use - although it seems rather limiting for the BIOS to do something like this.

 

Just thought I would update my experience in case someone stumbles accross this thread!
I loaded a later set of drivers that included the 5100 from the Panasonic site. It also mentioned something about fixing the wireless switch issue. The driver correctly identified the 5100 and it was working according to the Device Manager. However the same issue with the wireless switch was still present.
Must admit I was a bit sceptical about the Pin 20 mod, after all how can a drop of nail varnish work magic. All I can confirm is that it does!
The card does not show up in the BIOS and the wireless switch does not switch the card off, but other than that it appears to function. The diagnostics confirm that everythings is ok.
Whilst I would have preferred to have everything as Panasonic intended, it is clear that some of the earlier models all suffered from this shortcoming.

 

This will not work, cause the used pins are different and not supported from the slot, so they are not so easy interchangeable
I.e. to use an Intel WIMAX/WLAN-card u have to add USB to the standard Wifi slot (like I have done )

@MrRe: Thank u for the update

 

MrRe - glad to hear that you got your 5100 card working, although sorry to hear that you needed to mask off pin 20 to do it. I doubt that Pana changed the PCIe interface between the C and H models, so it seems to confirm speculation that the Pana bios is whitelisting WiFi cards and that this practice continues on the CF-52. It seems like a lame thing for Pana to do this. The WiFi spec is changing rapidly. If Pana believes that their stuff is built to last more than a few years, most users are going to want to change their wifi card at some point. Whats the point in inhibiting future upgrades?

Onirakiss - I get that the two mini PCIe slots are different, which also seems fairly lame. PCIe is an established spec and it shouldnt matter which slot a card goes into. I really like the build quality of the CF-52 and I need the serial and firewire ports, but the BIOS seems to be unnecessarily restrictive.

Can you elaborate on that? I'd like to drop a gobi in my CR-52 so I can get to the web when I'm out the road without having to use a datajack dongle. Thanks

 

Well one thing is they think that we would go out and buy a newer model so it would work but they never planned on guys like us to figure out crap like this...I bet they never thought that the 27's, 28's and 29's would still be used today...

 

So true.
On my CF29 and my CF19 I added Wifi-cards not made for Panasonic. To get them working with the wireless switch I had to add an resistor between pin20 and +3V.

Yep, but to increase the profit in every manner and not to forget the rules in the world for HF-equipment they have to do this

On my CF19 I used the USB-port from the not existing fingerprint scanner.I soldered 2 shielded wires from the port directly on the PCI-e slot for the Wifi-card.

Here is a picture, where I have done the same thing on a Tecra M7 from my girlfriend. On the bottom u c an unused PCIe port for the WWAN and on the top the WIFI-slot. The black shielded wires are simply fixed with the red tape.

 

Just came across this thread and am looking to do the same thing to my TB. I have a CF-52n which didn't come with a wifi and have a few questions:

-Do all 52's that don't come with a wifi card still have the two antenna cables? (I haven't opened it to look).

-Would the Intel 6300 work? A bit pricey but I would buy if it works.

-Does the wireless switch work after you install the wifi card?

Thanks.