Wifi card for laptop
Hello everybody,
I can easily replace our Intel wifi card that doesn’t work with free firmware. We don’t need to disassemble the whole laptop, just to remove a huge backplate, and the whole motherboard is there. Yet I don’t know what Wifi card to look for. I thought an Intel wifi card would be fine, and it isn’t.
I don’t want to buy a USB wifi stick since we can install a wifi card *inside* the box.
You can... if the manufacturer of the laptop does not impose unjust hardware DRMs (to force you to replace the card with one it "approves"... through a business deal). Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Sony and Toshiba are known to impose such DRMs on Wifi cards. Not all their laptops are affected though.
http://libre.thinkpenguin.com and https://tehnoetic.com are the only two vendors that guarantee that 100% free Linux kernels (no proprietary firmware in particular) properly drive all the hardware they sell (including internal Wifi cards). They both internationally ship.
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AFAIK, these are the best WiFi cards compatible with fully free systems:
Technoethical N300 Dual Band Wireless miniPCIe Half-Size Card
https://tehnoetic.com/tet-n300db
Technoethical N450 Dual Band Wireless miniPCIe Full-Size Card
https://tehnoetic.com/tet-n450db
I have just bought a WiFi card from a PC/laptop repair shop it cost me about $7. it is a mini half-sized atheros ar5b95 card which is supported in trisquel.
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AR5B95 is a Single Band 150Mbps card compatible with free ath9k driver, therefore compatible with fully free systems including Trisquel.
It's not high-end as https://tehnoetic.com/tet-n300db (Dual Band N300Mbps), but it gets the job done. :-)
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Yeah.. and if they are in 'murica it will get the job done till 2057, which is the year their Internet connection will exceed 150Mbps.
Are the Atheros wifi cards the recommended devices for a Lenovo T400? I'd like to replace my current card without paying a steep price.
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The Atheros WiFi cards will not work in a T400 with the original proprietary BIOS (because of a whitelist). However, they will work in a libreboot'ed T400.
Known to work:
Atheros 150Mpbs Single Band:
https://h-node.org/wifi/view/en/103/Atheros-Communications-Inc--AR9285-Wireless-Network-Adapter--PCI-Express---rev-01-/1/1/undef/undef/undef/undef/wifi-works/AR5B95
Atheros 300Mbps Dual Band:
https://tehnoetic.com/tet-n300db
Atheros 450Mbps Dual Band:
https://tehnoetic.com/tet-n450db
You or other free software users might also be interested in:
Installation of libreboot on T400 and other models:
https://tehnoetic.com/tet-lis
T400 with libreboot and GNU/Linux-libre:
https://tehnoetic.com/tet-t400
can you post the original atheros xard without the rebranding of technoetic? just like the AR5B95... I am going to try to find the dual band one if theres any available on the repair shops.
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We at Technoethical don't keep this information for ourselves, unlike ThinkPenguin.
From the product page: https://tehnoetic.com/tet-n300db
Technoethical TET-N300DB cards are Atheros AR5BHB116 miniPCIe cards sold under our own brand, with a guarantee that the TET-N300DB version ships with the Atheros AR9382 integrated circuit that uses a free software driver
And from the product page: https://tehnoetic.com/tet-n450db
Technoethical TET-N450DB cards are Atheros AR5BXB112 miniPCIe cards sold under our own brand, with a guarantee that the TET-N450DB version ships with the Atheros AR9380 integrated circuit that uses a free software driver
You might also be interested in reading the Specifications section for both our products. More information is there.