BIOS miniPCI-E Whitelist?

[Stadsport]

As some of you may remember, I had a little run-in with my Y510's BIOS not liking my wireless card in the past. A quick bit of research told me that the Y510 has a whitelist for acceptable wireless adapters.

I've found some copies of this whitelist for older Thinkpads, but nothing for newer machines, let alone the Y510. In fact, all of the whitelists I've found seem to be for pre-Lenovo Thinkpads.

I'm in the process of making OS X work on my Y510, and OSX hates Intel wireless chipsets. Before I buy a USB adapter, I'm wondering if there are any chipsets OS X does like that also happen to be on the lenovo whitelist. 

1. Does anyone know of such a list for the Y510? Or at least a list closer to the Y510's age?

2. Does anyone happen to know if any of the workarounds for older Thinkpads (ie blocking pin 20, setting bytes in BIOS, etc) work on the Y510?

IMO it's pretty messed up that a user-replaceable part has such a restriction, anyways, so I'm just trying to work around it. 

Thanks!

[Stadsport]

Sorry to bump so soon, but I couldn't find an option to edit.

I've found that the Thinkpad miniPCI-E adapters have Atheros chipsets that OS X loves.
Does anyone happent to know if this would work with a Y510? "IBM Lenovo Thinkpad Wireless Mini PCI express 802.11a/b/g wifi card 39T5578"

This would be perfect for me, and I could see Lenovo using the same whitelist for all models, but it would be my luck I'd buy it and it not work at all. 

[andyP Community SuperMod]

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Stadsport wrote:

..snip.. but I couldn't find an option to edit.

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Click on Options in the top right corner of the messageand select Edit Message.

edit; Typo

Message Edited by andyP on 09-25-2008 12:07 PM

[rab05]

I've run into the same problem. I attempted to update my Y510 to an Intel 4965 a/b/g/n card (my Y510 shipped with the a/b/g option) and the Lenovo BIOS just gave a message of "Unsupported wireless device" and I had to remove the Intel card to even boot.

So far I haven't found a way to edit any whitelist for cards. I've read some tutorials related to dumping the BIOS then using a hex editor to edit in the mac address of the wireless card you wish to use, but I just haven't had time to actually attempt it.

It's pretty bad that Lenovo has to lock out any other wireless card from their systems.

[Stadsport]

Someone over that InsanelyMac has modified the current (31) BIOS to allow Mac OS X to boot without the cpus=1 flag. Downloading as we speak. I mentioned the possibility of removing the whitelist check, and he said he would look into it. I'll keep all of you updated as I find out about it... Otherwise, I'm going to buy a compatible USB adapter and resolder the connector so I can hide it in the ExpressCard slot (don't think my expresscard34 slot works with OS X!).

[rab05]

Please keep me updated. I'd love to see the network card check removed or bypassed.

[Stadsport]

Hey all, just wanted to let everyone know that I feel like an idiot for not seeing this until a fellow Y510 owner pointed this out to me:

Remove the cover for the hard drive, and there's a second mini-PCIE slot, which does not perform the whitelist check. There's even enough room/slack to run the antenna wires from the original card to this second slot! I'm running a MacBook's wifi card in my Y510 now and it's perfect!

[anthcho]

anyone got a solution to whitelist?

I have a y550 and there is only one minipci-e slot. the 2nd slot is unsoldered.

[middleton]

I've resolved the problem for Y550 via BIOS patching month ago. Now the laptop boots with any adapter inserted.

[hacktrix2006]

Hi seems that all Lenovo has this problem and i would put my money on the G550 having it too.

Is there a how to i can save for after warrenty expires so i can mod mine out too as Linux Support for Intel wifi cards is not that stable. Would perfer to use my trusty BCM9432MC card i had in my old Asus laptop.

Also isn't this White List breaking rules in the EU like because its restricting customers to use Lenovo parts rather then other parts which really questions is the CRU really any good.