T61 (7659-D22): disable, remove or replace WWAN card?

[Z300M]

My T61 (7659-D22) has the Sierra Wireless card for Verizon, but I have no Verizon or other data plan. Can I disable the Sierra card so it isn't sucking power? Can I remove it without the machine complaining? Is there a more useful card I can install in its place?

[TuuS]

You can remove it, perhaps even sell it if you don't want it. I also believe you can disable it by pressing Fn+F5 keys, that will list your Wlan, Wwan, and BT cards and let you disable any you don't use. You can also disable them in the bios under "security" and "I/O devices".

If you want something to use the empty slot after removing the card, perhaps Intel turbo memory, that is an option often used in these systems. If you want to swap your wwan card for a turbo memory card, send me a PM.

[Z300M]

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TuuS wrote:

You can remove it, perhaps even sell it if you don't want it. I also believe you can disable it by pressing Fn+F5 keys, that will list your Wlan, Wwan, and BT cards and let you disable any you don't use. You can also disable them in the bios under "security" and "I/O devices".

If you want something to use the empty slot after removing the card, perhaps Intel turbo memory, that is an option often used in these systems. If you want to swap your wwan card for a turbo memory card, send me a PM.

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I thought about the turbo memory card, but the general opinion seems to be that it doen't improve perfomance significantly.

[TuuS · Accepted solution]

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Z300M wrote:

I thought about the turbo memory card, but the general opinion seems to be that it doen't improve perfomance significantly.

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I've questioned that myself. My conclusion is the $50 I paid for mine back in 2008 was more then the benefit it gave me, but you can buy the chips much cheaper now, so if you're running vista or seven with a sata harddrive, then it will provide both performance improvement, as well as reduced read/writes on the drive, extending it's service life. That of course isn't something you can see or feel in everyday use.

I use the turbo memory in my systems with the exception of a couple that I've installed SSD drives in.