Thinkpad X220 Tablet - Installation of sierra wireless MC7750

[anand_dh]

Got some good news - when I booted up my X220T, I was pleasantly surprised with the message that "Device Driver Software was not successfully installed"! I didn't even have to flash with the modded BIOS. Now all I have to do is find a device driver!

The MC7750 is available for purchase from www.rell.com/, I bought mine there.

[psyops]

That's great news!  Maybe Lenovo included that WWAN part in their whitelist in anticipation of releasing it sometime soon.

Luckily, Sony just released a device a week ago that includes the MC7750, and they have the drivers on their website for Windows x64.  So, try this:

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VPCZ2390X&upd_id=7337&os_group_id=6

After installing the drivers you'll have to run Lenovo's "Mobile Broadband" application to register for service.  You can find this on your machine in the following directory:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Lenovo\MobileBroadbandActivation\Wananc.exe

I have some other great news for you.  The product information site on Verizon indicated that while one of the antennas is dedicated to GPS, they have a 2nd antenna that does both GPS and broadband, so you should be able to get both with your current setup, although with probably slightly less accuracy that you would get if you had used the dedicated antenna.  Details here:

http://opennetwork.verizonwireless.com/deviceModuleDetails.aspx?deviceId=410

[anand_dh]

Thats good news about the GPS antenna. Unfortunately the sony driver wouldn't install on my thinkpad - it says the package is not meant for this computer model

It seems sierra wireless would provide its drivers and SDK only to companies that sign an NDA with them and not to individuals.

[psyops]

Ok, try this:

1) install the "universal extractor".  This program will extract the contents of an executable without running it.

http://legroom.net/scripts/download.php?file=uniextract161

2) Run the universal extractor and give it the Sony executable file that didn't work before.  Put the extracted files into a new directory.

3) Inside the directory that you extracted the file contents to, look for a directory called: TEMPEXEFOLDER.  Go there

4) Run the SWIQMISetup.exe program in that directory.

Voila.  The installer ran on my machine, but I don't have an MC7750 to test it against.  Hopefully these will be the correct drivers.

[psyops]

Or just download the result that I extracted from:

http://www.mediafire.com/?fai5vb3x25geuya

[anand_dh]

Thanks for the tip. I was able to install the driver successfully,however now the MC7750 does not show up in the device manager. I'm going to remove the MC7770, boot and shutdown the X220t and then install it again to check if it shows up in the device manager.

[psyops]

Sounds like a good idea.  Re-seating the card might fix the problem. Your intermittent view of the device is definitely consistent with a loose connection at the PCIe junction.

[anand_dh]

Unfortunately the thinkpad simply refuses recognize the MC7750 any more Have tried flashing the BIOS with the whitelist removed version also. Begining to suspect the MC7750 might be faulty.

[psyops]

Maybe rell will exchange it for a new one.

[psyops]

I have some bad news for you.  Your LTE part isn't defective, and getting a replacement won't help.  It seems the Lenovo machines fail when attempting to use this device.  The MC7750 works fine on my Dell machine, but when I insert it into my Lenovo machine it is visible in device manager for 20 seconds before disappearing again.  If I unplug the MC7750 while the machine is running and re-insert it, it appears again for 20 seconds and then disappears.

The MC7750 does this even when booted into Linux, so I deduce that the issue is at the hardware level.  Hopefully there is some way that Lenovo can fix this in the future with a BIOS update, or perhaps a firmware update, if they end up supporting this card at all.

One thing I didn't try was to insert a valid Verizon 4g LTE SIM card.  There is some chance that was the issue, but I think it's only a minor chance.  It doesn't seem to be a problem on my Dell, which doesn't have a Verizon SIM either.