Thinkpads Forum

I would like to take advantage of the convenience of Wi Fi with my TP600E.

Will the 600E work with Wi Fi???

If so, what are the options for hardware purchase???

A J A

The PCMCIA card slot on the 600e supports CARDBUS (wow, he says!) which means it's 32bit - which also means you can use a third party PCMCIA wireless card - I know 'cos I dunnit on my daughters 600e.

I have a simple wireless network at home and in the days when my daughter used my 600e and was home from uni, she connected to our home network with no problem and spent hours drooling over the web to her boyfriend in Bordeaux...in fact I think the only downside was cleaning the keyboard afterwards !

She's now pinched my T21, with the same D-Link PCMCIA card and that works too. (Keyboard's just as damp...)

In terms of hardware you'll need two things - a wireless access point or router (depending on how you configure your network) and the famous PCMCIA card that slots into the 600e...

I've also given my son my old 600E and have a wireless card in it. It works great. Not sure of the software out there to enable the connection that's best, but I downloaded a free version of Boingo and it works great! We were sharing a dialup connection through an access point but now with 3.0GB download speed and broadband, this little 600E flies! Check around on eBay...there's some great deals on "B" wireless cards. I recently bought 3 PCMCIA cards in a lot and paid only $32 for all of them. I'm going to give them as gifts to relatives for Christmas for them to use in their homes with a similar setup that I have now.
By the way, the more expensive PCMCIA cards aren't always the best. However, I found the Hawking is one of the better ones.

How were the instructions for the Hawking card? I have one of their print server devices, and while the device itself works great now, it was the very dickens to set up since the instructions were extremely... obscure.

Hi again... do you need Broadband with Wi Fi???

Thanks again,

A J A

What are you talking about? Broadband is a function of the service connecting you to the Internet (Broadband being used to describe the "width" or size of the theoretical passband allowing the transfer of information - the broader the band of frequencies, the larger the possible data transfer rate - yes, I'm simplifying here) - WiFi is a means to connect you to the modem that connects to the Internet. Two wholly different things.

You could perfectly easily have a WiFi network at home, that connected to the Internet by way of a 56k modem (ask Nonny...)

EXACTLY, Ian....that's why I said I used to share my dial-up connection wirelessly with my son. I have an access point which I've had for awhile (around $15 on ebay...made by TecNew...it's a D-Link clone...works great). Therefore, you can enable connection sharing, plug in your access point into the ethernet port and you're set. In a similar way, you can have "braodband," either cable modem or A/DSL and use a router, plugging the access point into one of the ethernet ports on the router, or just use a wireless router. Either way you can have WIFI to/from the access point or wireless router and either share your braodband internet connection or dial-up internet connection. Problem was that my son was downloading a lot of music and videos even with dial-up which slowed me down to a very snail's pace. Now with broadband being shared I don't have that problem. The WiFi setup on my son's side didn't change at all (with his 600E).

Now about the Hawking...I agree, the instructions are miniscule. After I got the card working I used Boingo which has a lot more information with it and works great for enabling the wifi connection, whether you choose to use WEP or IP for your connection. Good luck!

'Preciate it , Ian! I wish everybody would simplify their explanations like youi do.... your fellow simplificationists would catch on much quicker.

You'll have to forgive my ignorance???

Live...

A J A

Its me again with one of my Tom Fool questions on how to do something I got into by not asking first....
I bought a Wi Fi extension antenna off the net, but cant find any port to hook it up to on the card....

Can I hook into it via another means????

A J A

There are all kinds of PCMCIA Cards...some have an attachment for an antenna...others do not. You obviously have the type that does not. BE CAREFUL...even if you buy a PCMCIA card with an attachment...it is not guaranteed to be the correct one for the antenna (or rather the cable that comes with your antenna) you bought. Do a little research and you'll understand. For instance, click here http://www.fab-corp.com/ and on the left, click on Cables <5 Feet "Pigtails...you'll see the different attachments there are to the "pigtails" which are the short cables that run from the antenna to the antenna attachment on PC cards and other WiFi devices.
Good luck