intel 5350 do they actually exist?

i bought one of these off ebay, and found the wimax dosent work and the mac address is different, but the label is yellow on the back . the company i bought it from keeps protesting that it isnt an engineering sample, but im not so sure. are these cards actually in production or are they all engineering samples?

 

http://www.intel.com/network/connectivity/products/wireless/wimax/wifi/index.htm

They do indeed exist. For example, the Thinkpad T500 can be configured with these cards.

 

You just have to be careful as some will sell you a 5350 claiming it isn't an Engineering sample when it is.

In addition, they will sell you one that is incompatible with your system (HP/IBM are different than all others).

And lastly, your system has to be compatible with WiMax and have the USB line of the Mini-PCI wired properly. If not, your card will install properly, but it will not be WiMax ready and the options will be grayed out.

 

5150 and 5350 cards can be had from US-based sellers for about $10- more than the Chinese shops.

 

Not that I care about the source of the cards, but many Chinese shops filter cards through US and Canadian addresses and locations now and you can still fall prey to the engineering sample issue.

With that being said, the source of the cards is irrelevant if your mini-PCI slots are incompatible.

W90Vp is incompatible.
One of the two slots in the m17/ Flex 840 is not compatible
1722 is compatible.

 

i have a Dell 1720. it has a wlan, wpan, and wwan slot in the bottom. the only slot i had any success with was the wwan slot, which detected the wimax side of the card and installed the drivers, but it still showed "wimax not ready" in the intel wimax utility. ive now sent it back for a replacement so fingers crossed they send me a non-engineering sample version.

 

#1. If the card is an HP/IBM 5350 card and you install it in a non-HP/IBM system, the device will show up with a yellow exclamation mark in device drivers after the drivers are installed

#2. If the card is the proper card, is detected and the drivers install but your mini-pci slot is not wired properly for the card, you will get, "WiMax Not Ready."

#3. If the card is proper, detected and your slot is compatible, you will get a, "Wimax is now ready," down in the system tray


If it detected and installed the drivers (No yellow exclamation mark in Device Drivers for the device), but it says, "Wimax Not Ready," that usually means the slot it was installed is not wired properly for the card.

 

Is there a way to check if a slot is compatible? If the W90 isnt then im guessing the G50 doesnt have much of a chance. The G50 actually has 2 slots only one is normally accessible and within reach of the antenna leads.

 

it installed the drivers without any yellow flashes. the ebay supplier says it is compatible with Dell centrino duo2 945 965 etc style laptops. i tried installing it in my friends Dell 1737 and had the same experience, though i had to install it in the wwan slot on that model as well because its wlan slot is only half height, and i know this model is available with a 5150 as an option.

 

If it installed physically ok and the drivers detected it and added it to the devices without any conflicts and it is still greyed out / reporting, "WiMax is not ready," or similar, it is most likely your mini-pci slot with a very small chance of it being something else.

I'll assume you used Intel's 5150/5350 WiFi/WiMax driver install packages from their driver section.

Can you take a pic of the actual card and post it?

 

i would do only ive sent it back to China for replacement. though rest assured if the next one does the same thing, ill be posting pics and details of the ebayer on here, so no one else gets stung. yes i did use the Intel drivers. i cant understand how they can say there compatible with most recent Dell's if there not, surely they know people will give them loads of negative feedback. im just hopeing because it was an engineering sample that that's the reason it didnt work .

update: ive just checked my thread on dell's support forum, and it seems someone has got an intel 5350 to work on an xps m1330, which is a similar age to my 1720, at a guess.

 

At this point, it is hit or miss. For example, the Whitebook has two Mini-PCI slots. One slot is compatible. The other is not. The 1722's are compatible (What can't those chassis do? ). I'm in the process of testing it on a NP9280 I built earlier today.

 

You can't always go by age or similar release dates, as each laptop Motherboard and spec can vary even if released relatively close to each other. Best way is when it gets here to test it out and see how it goes, but all indications point to the 1720 having an incompatible mini-pci slot.

 

well i got a total refund in the end. so now im wondering if i should bother with wimax or just get a 5300? thank you for all your help electrosoft.