Sony TT and WiMax Upgrade

I have a Sony TT290 that I absolutely love - while its getting a bit old now, I havent found anything close to the size, battery-life and Blu-Ray drive.

Verizon is bad in my area so I decided to replace the wifi card with an Intel 6250 Wifi/WiMax card. The wifi is working, but for some reason I can't get the WiMax to show - it doesnt show up on the hardware list and installing the drivers doesnt activate it.

I uninstalled SmartWi thinking maybe it was not allowing power or similar and installed a newer version that came from a Sony laptop with WiMax. It works, but still no wimax. Doesnt even show.

Thinking maybe the 6250 card wont work with the TT - chipset or other problem. I downloaded latest chipset drivers from Intel, but that install failed saying not applicable - go to my manufacturer.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

The Sony TT is not wired to the necessary buses be able to use Wimax.
You could try to mod this as nectop on this forum has done.
May be if you want better reception may be buy a Intel 5300/6300 and get a third antenna.

 

Thanks Rachel - do you know if the 5150 works? I originally had one of those on order, but grabbed the 6250 out of another PC (not real patient).

Also, any pointers to the link you mentioned?

 

You'd need to mod it to use the 5150 also.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/5496510-post26.html
Btw, i have the 5300 in my TT and added a 3rd antenna in the bezel and it works very well.

 

Sorry to be a pain, but can you explain that a bit more for me? Did the 5300 not require breaking out a soldering iron? I saw the post about moding, but I couldnt find the steps - the post I saw had pictures, but they appeared blocked.

If you have it working, I'd like to copy what you did if I can.

 

Rachel - can you share how you added the 5300 and the 3rd antenna? If you have it working, I'd like to copy it. Thanks!

 

No soldering is needed. You just need to buy a half mini 5300 card. I didn't do the mod myself, someone else fitted the antenna in the bezel so i couldn't tell you how to remove it.

You could though if you didn't wish to remove the bezel buy the antenna and double/triple it up and stick it say on the HD bracket. I've done this before in another ultraportable and the reception was just as good or may be better than i was pulling it with my TT.

If you wanted to put the antenna in the bezel it will be a tight fit as you've already got the antenna for the wwan modules in there. The person who did mine actually did some soldering/altering on the antenna to make it fit. I can't remember what they said they did though.

 

Thanks Rachel - very much appreciated. Notice you mentioned a half-height 5300 - are you not using WiMax? I can't seem to find a 5300 series half-height with WiMax and found a couple posts that it's not avail.

 

No the 5300 is a not a wimax card. It is a wifi N card that uses 3 antennas and it's the 3rd antenna that can help increase signal/range.
You can compare between both cards here the 5100 and the 5300.
Intel® Ultimate N WiFi Link 5300 and Intel® WiFi Link 5100 Products

I thought that might be an option for you as it's not easy to get the Wimax working in the TT's as you would need to do some soldering.