Wifi card for laptop

11 réponses [Dernière contribution]
gnulux
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 06/17/2015

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.

Magic Banana

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I am a translator!

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A rejoint: 07/24/2010

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.

tct
tct

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Hors ligne
A rejoint: 10/23/2011

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

akito
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A rejoint: 05/10/2017

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.

tct
tct

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A rejoint: 10/23/2011

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. :-)

SuperTramp83

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A rejoint: 10/31/2014

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.

akito
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A rejoint: 05/10/2017

The internet speed s^cks though so it does not matter, however the LAN streaming may matter.

tct
tct

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Hors ligne
A rejoint: 10/23/2011

The higher the maximum speed of the WiFi adapter, the faster it is on any Internet connection type compared to lower-end WiFi adapters.

idhrenor
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A rejoint: 05/16/2017

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.

tct
tct

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Hors ligne
A rejoint: 10/23/2011

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

akito
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/10/2017

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.

tct
tct

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Hors ligne
A rejoint: 10/23/2011

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.