ThinkPad 11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Mini Express Adapter

This is a WiFi Adapter that is installed in a Mini-PCI Express slot

Features

Chipset: Atheros AR5008 or Atheros AR5418
Integrated Mac Processor and Radio Chip: Atheros, unknown model
IEEE Standards: 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n (draft)
PCI ID: 168c:0024

Different chipsets

There are at least two chipsets which are both referred to by Lenovo as "ThinkPad 11a/b/g/n". To find out which one you have you may have to update your pci id list. You can then use this list to identify the hardware on your pci bus.

#update-pciids
#lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller
03:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5418 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
15:00.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1510 PC card Cardbus Controller

In this case, the wireless card is in the second to last line of the output from lspci.

IBM Partnumbers

42T0825 [1]

Linux WiFi driver

There's now (04.04.07) added experimental support for the AR5008 chipset to a new branch in MadWifi. I have compiled this driver successfully, but it's still at an experimental stage, so no promises are given. Howto

There is an old ticket for this card at madwifi, #1001.

There is an new ticket for this card at madwifi-branch, #1243.

To install this driver, just checkout the branch madwifi-hal-0.9.30.13.

mkdir /tmp/madwifi
cd /tmp/madwifi
svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/branches/madwifi-hal-0.9.30.13/
cd madwifi-hal-0.9.30.13/
make
make install
*choose [r]
reboot

News fron the madwifi-branch:

*  milestone changed from version 0.9.x - progressive release candidate phase to version 0.9.4.
FYI: the madwifi-hal-0.9.30.13 branch has been merged to trunk 
(and the branch has been removed). If you don't want to wait until the next release (v0.9.4), 
you could go with a snapshot or checkout from trunk - just make sure that your code is >= r2360.

Until the madwifi driver stabilizes you might want to get the Windows driver from Lenovo's support site and use a recent version of ndiswrapper (>= 1.29). I've compiled a Howto for this card.

AR5418 is still to new?

If anyone is able to get the AR5418 to work with madwifi, please add your procedure for getting it to work - in the meantime, ndiswrapper works with the windows driver.

Update 10.06.2007 from Stevie:

I have the AR5418 chipset and with the snapshot release r2431 this chipset works (with wpa-psk). Just try it...

Hardware switch

Some ThinkPads have a hardware switch that must be in the on position for the radio to work, regardless of driver state:

In addition to hard-switching the wireless card, the switch also generates an acpi event on transition from hi->lo and vice versa. It is however the same event regardless of the direction.

ThinkPad 11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Mini Express Adapter