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

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This is for the unknown Atheros device, PCI ID 168c:0024. I only got i working with ndiswrapper, a madwifi driver is not yet available.

ndiswrapper

Got it working on my T60 2007VEH by installing the windows driver via ndiswrapper. You need a recent version of ndiswrapper (I used driver version 1.30).

This is the procedure I used:

  • Download the Windows driver from Lenovo/IBM's support site. Search for your Thinkpad model and look out for the "Wireless LAN ThinkPad 11abgn for Windows" driver.
  • extract its contents with cabextract:
:~> cabextract 7iwc16ww.exe
Extracting cabinet: 7iwc16ww.exe
 extracting DATA1.CAB
 extracting DATA1.HDR
 extracting DATA2.CAB
 extracting IBMTPI.XML
 extracting IKERNEL.EX_
 extracting IMDRV/WSIMD.CAT
 extracting IMDRV/WSIMD.INF
 extracting IMDRV/WSIMD.SYS
 extracting IMDRV/WSIMDP.CAT
 extracting IMDRV/WSIMDP.INF
 extracting LAYOUT.BIN
 extracting SETUP.EXE
 extracting SETUP.INI
 extracting SETUP.INX
 extracting SETUP.ISS
 extracting UNINSTLL.ISS
 extracting WINXP_2K/AR5416.SYS
 extracting WINXP_2K/NET5416.CAT
 extracting WINXP_2K/NET5416.INF
 extracting WLLANATH.TPI
  • In the WINXP_2K directory, install the driver .inf file with ndiswrapper:
:~> cd WINXP_2K/
:~> sudo /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -i NET5416.INF
installing net5416 ...
forcing parameter MapRegisters from 256 to 64
[...last line repeats a few times...]

Note that the last line only occurs with a recent version of ndiswrapper. I had to compile ndiswrapper from source to get the new version. This went smoothly on SUSE 10.1 with the kernel-developer selection installed.

  • ndiswrapper (run as root) tells you that the driver is installed:
root:~> ndiswrapper -l
net5416         driver installed, hardware (168C:FF1D) present

Strange, the PCI ID changed. ndiswrapper reports it as 168C:FF1D, while lspci -l reports 168c:0024. Don't know what this means.

  • load the ndiswrapper module:
root:~> modprobe ndiswrapper
  • iwconfig shows the card:
root:~> iwconfig wlan0
wlan0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"youknowit"
         Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 01:23:45:67:89:AB
         Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
         Encryption key:off
         Power Management:off
         Link Quality:42/100  Signal level:-69 dBm  Noise level:-96 dBm
         Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
         Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

This is with KNetworkManager running; it automatically connected to the network. ESSID and Access Point MAC are faked for this howto.

I must add that a few days ago, with another access point, the exact same procedure did not work. The card was tuned to some 5.?? GHz and would not recognize the 802.11g network that was present. It also had WEP encryption in effect, which the AP in this howto does not have (it's a VPN).

I suceeded to connect with another PCMCIA WLAN card, also driven by ndiswrapper, so it wasn't the network or ndiswrapper's fault. Have to wait until tonight to see if I can reproduce the failure, though.

madwifi

madwifi has no support yet for this card (as of Dec 06, 2006). Current models of the MacBook seem to be equipped with this card, too, so we're not the only ones waiting for a driver... Support is tracked by madwifi ticket #1001. There you'll also find some useful links. It was my source for information while trying to get this piece of hardware working, so thanks go out to the community at madwifi!

Shamuki 12:41, 6 December 2006 (CET)
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