BleepingComputer.com: intel pro/wireless 2915abg Thinkpad t40

Okay so I've been at it for hours. What should have been a simple upgrade now has me up at 9 am with no sleep because of it. So here it is, I upgraded my Thinkpad T40 with a new mini wireless card, which is the intel pro/wireless 2915abg and I installed proper drivers and it seemed to work fine at first. After trying it again I was unable to connect to secure networks. Then after some more time after I uninstalled the drivers and tried older ones, It now is only able to detect wireless networks but cannot connect. the firewall is off and when i try connecting to non-secure networks it loads and instead says not connected beside the name. I am lost and frustrated now, all I ask is for some help!

Hello and welcome to Bleepingcomputer!

I read your description above and am curious as to whose secure networks your trying to connect to.

If you are trying to connect to someones wireless connection without authorization, you are not going to be able to connect unless you know their pass phrase, some routers are configured to reject access even if you know the correct pass phrase, without their allowing that connection which is allowed by the matching of the connecting computers MAC address to the one set in the routers software. If there is no match, the pass phrase will be rejected even if it is 100% correct.

You also have to be on the same setting for if it is WEP, WPA-PSK [TKIP] or WPA2-PSK [AES] security settings.

For what it is worth, there are two settings within wireless on computers, there is public network and home network settings with in windows, the home network setting is less secure then the public network settings and has less restrictions on it. IMO

Its my secure network I am trying to connect to. when WEP is on, no connection but when its off it gets on. Well this isn't the case anymore. I can't even connect when WEP is off. I'm using Windows to access the wifi and when i click on my wifi instead of connecting it would say not connected. I don't know if it is the card itself or if i installed the drivers incorrectly.

Ok first I would like you to check your device manager and check the network adaptor section of device manager, expand it and see what there, if its already expanded and shows either an red X or a yellow exclamation mark, you have a missing driver issue or an error with that adaptor.

You also have to enable the wireless function by right clicking your network icon near the clock and check the settings.

If you have no network icon, then you need to go to your control panel and look for the network icon there and double click to access the settings.

Before I get too deep into the local area network properties, I first want to wait till you reply with your Device Manager network adaptors properties results first, then if everything there is fine we will move onto your local area network properties settings next.

Kind regards.

Intel® PRO/1000 MT mobile connection and Intel® PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Network connection is under network adapters, no red X no exclamation point and wireless function is available. I am able to see access points but not connect.

This is almost certainly the driver. I put the same model in my wife's T40 and have the same problem. But it's a dual boot. Connects to wpa2-psk with a 50+ character password just dandy when she boots Ubuntu 10.04 on the machine using that version's default kernel module.

Found an Atheros update for another machine that fixed the same problem with another dual-booter and that's how I got here cruising for an updated Intel. No luck so far. Guess she'll just have to keep booting linux! ;)

Oh wow I was actually planning to dual boot lucid but didn't know if it would work. So I actually tried karmic but the wireless still didn't work. So I took out karmic for my legit xp and just kept it this way. I'm going to just wait til I have money so I can get a better card suited for this laptop.

thalonewolf, on Jun 26 2010, 07:03 PM, said:

I wouldn't use WEP at all. Use WPA2 and make sure that you are using Windows XP SP3 as it has additional wireless security patches (KB893357 for example).