T430 Gobi-3000 WWAN and windows 8

[haglocool]

I have a T430 with 16gb Core i7 - nvidia 5400 graphics, Bluetooth, figerprint reader, SSD, illuminated keyboard and Gobi-3000 wwan option.

I've upgraded to windows 8 Pro, even did a fresh install of windows 8 PRO, all work except lights in keyboard and my wwan card, no driver is found for the card.

Please help me I need WWAN to work since I work out of the office 80% of the time, please advice or do I have to go back to Windows 7.

Thank you

[VMarco]

I have the same issue on my thinkpad X1 (moved up from Win 7 x64 to Win 8 Pro x64). All is working well, except I don't know how to activate or configure the Gobi 3000 WWAN card. the Win 7 utility to activate the card is also not working.

[VMarco]

All, I might have found a work-around to the problem posed by activation of Sierra Wireless Gobi 3000 Card.  Download a connection manager (it is not meant for ThinkPads, but I took chances...) from http://www.motioncomputing.com/drivers/J3500/MotionCM_v32315_RN.htm . It works!!!  Those in the USA might be able to use the pre-installed broadband profiles for AT&T and Verizon etc.  For all others, you may have to create profiles.

[haglocool]

Thanks for your effort, I´ll try this later and let you all know how it went.

Thanks again.

[haglocool]

OK, quick update.

Keyboard backlight is now working (don't know how that happened) 

Now WWAN - I had a hard time with the connection manager, problem was hardware was recognized by device manager ( 4 devices named sierra wireless Gobi 3000) but no driver was installed. I downloaded windows 8 beta driver for Gobi-3000 but it always said "no compatible hardware found", So I had an Idea, I backed up the drivers from windows 7 to a folder, this created folders with .inf .dll and all necessary files, on windows 8 I right clicked on each and did an update driver using the drivers I backed up, only one of the devices was recognized and installed but now when I ran the beta drivers for windows 8 it installed everything, now all mi devices work and are correctly installed.

Now I installed the connection manager suggested by Vmarco and YESSSSS now I have WWAN connection up and running. I did create a new profile since I'm currently in ARGENTINA.

I have two disks installed in my T430, I use one for work and one for testing, In will keep testing and will try to find a more easy solution for this.

Please Lenovo release real drivers and connection manager for Gobi-3000 and windows 8.

You have Ericsson drivers on the Site why not Goby-3000 or 4000?

[haglocool]

I found a native app for windows 8 and sierra wireless gobi 3000

http://www.vzam.net/download/download.aspx?productid=1162

I will be testing today, but looks like it will solve my problem since it is a supported configuration on a global card.

http://www.vzam.net/download/supported.aspx

Laptops with Embedded Verizon

Wireless WWAN Module                               Windows (Vista/XP)    Windows 7            Windows 8
                                                                            Supports NDIS         Supports NDIS    Supports NDIS Mode

Lenovo Notebook with global module (Sierra Wireless MC8355 "Gobi3000")

7.6.6.4 (2685b) 3

7.6.6.4 (2685b)3

7.7.8.4 (2794a)3

I can't wait to get home and try this out.

Take note the version to download is 7.7.8.4 (2794a)

will let you know. 

[haglocool]

Ok so my venture with the Verizon app did not work, it says the card is not compatible, but I can say that Vmarco's alternative works perfect.

In some cases T430 will recognize sierra wireless on windows "device admin panel" but it wont install drivers, in this case please download beta drivers for windows 8 and gobi3000, the drivers don't mention T430 and go up to T420 but they work all the same then if all devices install correctly use Vmarco's app to create and manage profiles, I can confirm it works on all networks since I'm currently in Argentina and successfully configured and connected to all three providers.

Here are the links:

Sierra Wireless MC8355 (Gobi 3000)

ThinkPad Edge E120, Edge E125, Edge E320, Edge E325, L420, L520, T420, T420s, T520, W520, X1, X121e,...

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/win8beta_8awt16ww.zip

The beta page if you need any thing else that has not been officially released:

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=HT072084

And Vmarco's profile and connection manager:

http://www.motioncomputing.com/drivers/J3500/MotionCM_v32315_RN.htm

I guess we can say this issue is resolved but not fix since Lenovo should give us the correct driver installer including  the connection and profile manager.

[dutchman23]

Very impressive how you guys tackled this problem. Thank you! I spent hours trying to get this to work and was just about to give up. I can confirm this is working perfectly on an x220 on the KPN network in The Netherlands.

haglocool - just to confirm, you ended up using the beta drivers, right? Couldn't tell if you used a mix of win 8beta and win 7.

[haglocool · Accepted solution]

Answer for dutchman23

Yes I enden up using beta driver, I can confirm no problems so far and I have been using it every day for atleast 4 hours a day.

[ramancars]

I cannot activate with the motionCM manager.

When I click "activate" motionCM says:

"Activation or update could not start. Error code: 1013"

(it doesn't help running motionCM as administrator).

So no WWAN. Any ideas?

Lenovo beta drivers (win8beta_8awt16ww) seems to have installed correctly in device manager.

Thinkpad: X230/win8 with gobi-3000.