I just received my W520 and realized I mistakenly ordered the wrong wifi card; the basic b/g/n card rather than one of the centrino cards.  I looked through the service manual (page 73) and it seems easy enough to replace the card.  I removed the keyboard and took a quick look.  I verified that I have 3 antenna leads (one tucked under the tape and two attached to the card).  What I cannot find any mention of is if there is anything that needs to be done after installing the new card.

1.  Can I go from the b/g/n basic card to the Centrino 6300 card? Or do I need to stick with the 6205 version?

2.  Are there any BIOS changes that need to be considered?  

3.  Will the PC recognize the new card?

Thank you,

Mike

I tried to replace my WLAN card (N-6205) with a Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 and it was blocked by the BIOS. It says that's illegal to change the card on my model !!! (42762-3JU) 

How can I upgrade ???

Thank you.

Re item 3. Yes. Not saying you have to do much but just make sure no little issues with Win OS/Proset and the new card. I've seen a small amount of funniness upgrading cards that lead me to want to uninstall the old card before installing the new one on Win 7. Probably a good idea to uninstall the old card anyway before installing the new one.

Cheers

Sorry responded to wrong post (this is an old thread). What says this? Does the machine POST ok? Just wanted to confirm. Did you try pulling/attaching the plug/battery, maybe remove and reinstall the card too, and booting again to see if that helps? Also a reset of the BIOS settings may help.

Thank you

The machine did not POST !  That was the only and exclusively message from BIOS (1.37) as it was not permited for that model.

No option to do anything only to replace the WLAN card with the original one. It's a shame that. I bought the new card and I want to UPGRADE by myself my Thinkpad with a 3 antennas WLAN card !

Hi. I think I have seen what you seeing but with some older/other Thinkpads and cards, been awhile. Did you try any of the steps I gave? What I suggested worked then I think and it can't hurt your situation now. Someone else might chime in with more suggestions.

Hi. I did what you suggested but nothing changed. I think that the problem is related to the fact that the cart itself does'nt have a FRU number. It's an original Intel WLAN card but without FRU number.

Ah. That about says it all with the card. You could probably get it to work but you might not like all that you would need to do.