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I have been having troubles with my X121e wireless as described in this post.

The connection is very weak, so I figured I'd invest in a wireless card Centrino Advanced-N 6205.

When I plug in the card into the spare PCIe slot, the computer doesn't boot at all (I can't even access the BIOS). Trying to disable the wireless card in the BIOS also doesn't work. (After disabling the wireless card, saving changes and exiting, the system restarts. Looking in the BIOS, the card is enabled again.)

Also, the old wireless card sat so tight, that even without slipping once, my screwdriver just scooped out the heart of the screw, so that there is no hope of removing the old wireless card...

I am quite desperate to have a working internet connection.

  1. What can I do to disable the old wireless card and enable the new one?
  2. Is it possible to check if ubuntu even recognizes the card (e.g. when I plug in the card right after I pass by the BIOS)?
  3. Is is worth looking into trying to upgrade (i.e. flash) my BIOS?
  4. Could the BIOS distinguish the new wireless card in the spare slot from a WWAN card and refuse to start (without a worning)? That is, do I win anything by drilling out the old wireless card?
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Earthliŋ
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3 Answers3

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To disable the old wireless card, please open a terminal and do: 

sudo su
echo "blacklist rtl8192ce" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
exit

Please be certain that your laptop does not utilize a whitelist for allowable wireless cards. http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_unauthorized_MiniPCI_network_card

Most Lenovos, including my two, use a BIOS whitelist. If the Centrino you picked is not on the list, it is very tricky to bypass and may brick the laptop.

chili555
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I gave up and bought a Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 instead, which works fine (even with the original card in place). Ubuntu 12.04 gives you a choice for each wireless connection on which card to use.

Earthliŋ
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0

As described in the comments here, try and remove the old WLAN card before using the new card in the WWAN/UMTS Slot.

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Uli
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