Thinkpad T480 WiFi 6E Upgrade Guide | Intel AX210 | Lenovo laptop DIY
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
- In this video, I install an Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6 card in my Thinkpad T480. As mentioned in the video, you'd need to download and install the Intel AX210 driver first before switching the Wi-Fi cards, or else you won't have network or internet access after the job.
Intel AX210 driver link: www.intel.com/content/www/us/...
DIY GUIDE
00:00 - Intro and prep
03:36 - Wi-Fi card replacement
04:39 - Antenna installation
06:33 - Validation
Link for the Intel AX210NGW Wi-Fi 6E card: amzn.to/3nx7orD
Full disclosure: this is an affiliate link. I earn a little from the traffic upon checkout but don't get any share from the product itself. 
Хобби
Your videos of customizing/upgrading a Thinkpad T480 are timely! I just bought a secondhand unit days ago and was thinking of upgrading pretty much everything. Thank you very much!
Glad you like the guides! Save for the dual heat pipe cooling fan/thermal repaste video that's about to go live next week, I think I have all possible upgrades for the T480 covered in my channel.
Do feel free to drop a comment and ask questions, if you need clarifications about anything though. Cheers!
@@ChezDoesStuff I've actually just ordered a 64GB (32x2) RAM (a TeamGroup T-Force Zeus one since it was the cheapest one I could find) and 1TB Samsung m.2 NVMe SSD today, so I'm really looking forward to finally tinker with my T480 when those arrive.
As for the wifi card, have you got any tips with buying them? Like what brands to watch out for and whatnot. So far I've looked through various e-commerce websites and found OKN and Berwood among other ones.
I suppose the reason why I haven't bought one yet is because I'm not sure which one's a trusted brand, especially when the listing shows a different spec than what was in the product description and pictures.
@@virtualfreiios9597 exciting! I've had good experiences with TeamGroup's T-Create line. My T480, T580, and T15g gen1 all have them installed.
For the WiFi card, I can only attest to Intel's AX210, since that's what I have experience with. I just checked ebay and saw this model readily available from various sellers. $16-$20 sounds about right and close to what I bought mine for.
@@ChezDoesStuff So, update on my T480. The 1TB SSD I ordered arrived yesterday and the 64GB RAM arrived today, and I successfully and very easily replaced the ones that came when I first purchased the laptop (definitely thanks to your video guides). Had some panicked moments especially with the RAM after installing-after signing in into the laptop, it just suddenly shuts down. Good thing it resolved itself when I fell asleep; I did a memtest prior to that to check if the module I bought had some defects, but there was none so all's good.
Right now, I'm waiting for the wifi card to arrive as well and now considering buying a new heat pipe cooling fan for it as soon as possible since my T480 only has the single heat pipe one. Slowly but surely, my T480's becoming quite the beast of a machine. So happy!
@@virtualfreiios9597 sounds like everything's going according to plan!! I forgot to mention that it takes a while for new RAM to be read by the laptop on first boot.
Also, if you ordered the RAM from Amazon, you can easily have it replaced for peace of mind. :)
Just subscribed man! Bought a refurbished t480 as a project, these videos gonna come in handy as I'm upgrading everything.
Thank you! And happy modding!
Great info on the T480!👍👍
Hey Chez! Just about to buy a T480 and I really appreciate your upgrade videos. Thanks. Just subscribed so will see you again.
Hope the videos serve you well!
Thanks man!!! Loved the video. Nicely explained!!!! Everybody can do this.
I used your prior video to upgrade my P52s to Wifi 6E. Thank you!
You're welcome! Glad to be of help. Nice touge video, too. I might upload mine soon. :)
Awesome. Can I assume this will work on a P43s too
upgraded my pavillion 15 from years ago too, works out of the box with linux mint
Thanks for the demonstration!
Thank you!
You're welcome!
Thank you for the tutorial very informative!
Glad you liked it!
You should have done iperf benchmarks before and after to compare the two Wifi adapters.
Incase anyone has an issue after they do this : I put the drivers on a thumb drive but after installing the wifi card and then installing the drivers and rebooting, it still didn't find the card on device manager. I had to plug in to ethernet and then it found the card and all was well after that.
Thank you for the help! 👍
Thanks for stopping by!
Link for the Intel AX210NGW Wi-Fi 6E card: amzn.to/3nx7orD
Full disclosure: this is an affiliate link. I earn a little from the traffic upon checkout but don't get any share from the product itself.
For me it was easier and faster just to unplug the battery after the bottom lid was removed. PS I haven't tested it yet, but there are WiFi7 compatible modules on the market.
I've ordered the same module as you did, thank you. I've bought U7Pro AP and T480 didn't want to connect to WPA3 only network at all. So, I've made an upgrade according to your recomendations.
I did the same upgrade, but notice any device with AX210 or AX211 even after getting driver from Intel Event Viewer still have lots of 6062 from error about can't find driver.
Is it possible to upgrade wifi card on Lenovo E40-80?
What's the main advantage of upgrading the wifi card?
Can u do this on the t480s?
How with WiFi 7 cards?
question can this work for lenovo ideapad?
Thank you for sharing, Im considering wifi upgrade for my t560. Did you have to check if the card is whitelisted for your thinkpad?
I can only comment for the Tx80 series. I didn't have to deal with whitelists. As far as I know, only the WWAN cards involve whitelists - for this generation, anyway.
I suggest buying the AX210 from a store with great return policies, just in case it won't work with your T560. I have a link in the video description, should it prove useful. Cheers
Where can i download the drivers for linux? or i just download it when the windows os is on and then change the os to linux
Will the drivers remain?
Hello. Thanks for the video. I am using Lenovo e580. There is an Intel AC 3165 wifi card inside. I wonder if it supports ax210ngw wifi card?
I unfortunately do not have the experience to answer that. You can purchase from one of the links I provided to have returns as a safety net.
Hi, thank you so much for making and sharing this video about upgrading and compatibility! Just received my refurbished T480 and I also want to upgrade to Intel AX210. On ebay I found AX210D2W which seems to be a bit different (Bluetooth 5.3 instead of 5.2 etc). Is this expected to work or do I just have to try? Also I´ve noticed that there is still a BIOS from 2018 installed. Is there any reason to NOT upgrade to the latest from 2023? Thank you in advance! Best regards
Glad to help! First order of business is to update the BIOS and, more importantly, the Thunderbolt firmware ASAP. The USB-C ports have a tendency to self-destruct when left un-updated for too long. For the Wi-Fi card - it should work, but I've never tried them and do not know where to find pertinent drivers for them. Cheers
@@ChezDoesStuff Thank you again so much for the almost instant reply. BIOS and TB FW are now up to date. I will stick to the AX210 that you recommended :) Do you know if there is any way to disable the nVidia dGPU on models that have the MX150? Again Big Thanks!!! And for the great content around the T480. It really is an amazing device
@@marioauditore571 great to hear! I have the Nvidia on my T580 and never really figured out how to do a full disable of the GPU. I tried disabling it via Device Manager, but that didn't seem to do much :(
Does it work on T495?
Amazing video. I have the t480s model. Can I upgrade my laptop with the same card?. Thanks.
I don't have any experience with the T480s to reliably answer this. Sorry!
Hi Chez, did you try bluetooth connection? I heard that below 10th Gen CPU's do not support bluetooth feature on ax210ngw. Thanks.
Hi, I just upgraded the WiFi AX210 in my T480. I was able to connect MX3 mouse via BT to it, the laptop's BT also was visible from my mobile.
ja mam T540P i nie moge zainstalować sterowników , wyskakuje komunikat że pliki są aktualne. a po wymianie karty wifi w laptopie wyskakuje mi błąd 1802 ( nie rozpoznaje karty )
After installing the Intel AX210 WiFi 6 network card, do Intel AMT option still show up on the BIOS menu under Config?
I wasn't able to check this and do not have access to the T480 and T580, unfortunately. Hope someone else can chime in.
Hi, what is the highest possible wifi upgrade for T480? Do you have any models that is compatible with the laptop?
atm its an intel ax210 chip I would say. supports wifi6 and depending on the brand bluetooth 5.3
Why colors have importance when connecting wi-fi antennas? Isn't it that it doesnt matter to which socket you plugin white and to which black? What to do when having problems to connect plugins to sockets (it doesnt catch)?
Technically, they should be interchangeable. I just wanted to leave things the way I found them. If your antenna plugs won't catch for some reason, just very carefully align the center pins before pressing down to avoid bending them.
Hi sir, is that possible to mod 4in1 card reader in T480 to SSD port ?
I haven't tried that one yet, so I can't say for sure. :)
Another question is i found this exact wifi card but with antenna included can you also use that in a laptop?
Yes, but the pre installed antennas would likely work better since the manufacturer has already determined the best placement for them.
Can this be done on a P43s (T490 same motherboard) that came with an Intel 9560 card?
Physically, yes. I am not sure if there was any sort of hardware whitelist implemented for the T490 or P43s. To be safe, you can try buying from the link I provided and just return it if it doesn't work out for you.
@@ChezDoesStuff It is soldered on for the T490 and its variants. You are lucky.
Would this wifi6e card work on the x280?
I can't say for certain, since I do not have a X280. I'd be surprised if it doesn't though. Cheers
il cavo nero su main e quello bianco su aux
Great Job thanks for the Video
You're welcome and thanks for watching!
Now interestingly, your antenna connectors are the wrong way round! I’ve just done this upgrade and ALL the vids I saw first show the black antenna cable goes to #2 which is labelled Main and has a black triangle. The White cable goes to the aux white connection. I suspect it was connected initially incorrectly and you just copied it which is fair enough. Having said that I’ve no idea what difference it makes but wonder why they are designated differently if it actually makes no difference 🤔
Interesting. Still works fine though!
what was the big change or difference in upgrading the wifi card ?
Better speed and range, if you have a WiFi 6 network. It can also do multiple in multiple out (MIMO) connections with non-WiFi 6 routers, so there's a little speed benefit there as well.
thank you!@@ChezDoesStuff
Weird how the card requires manual drivers for windows, I had the same experience on Windows 11. Ubuntu its just plug and play.
That's really convenient. I miss playing around with Linux.
Looks like T480 and T480s have exact same internals.. would that card fit on T480s too?
Can it used a WIFI 6 AX200NGW ?
I think some folks have seen success with that card.
How much faster is this than the default card?