Thinkpads Forum

Hi fellas

I been using W520 for nearly 11 years, still going alright, originally it was on Win-7, I updated to Win-10 and was working ok until now.

It has 1TB, 32GB with standard WiFi card Centrino(R) Advanced-N 6205
Just recently I noticed WiFi getting cut off every now and then, done some testing and found it seems to have some issue.

My WiFi connection is 270 mbps

I have another laptop HP (WiFi card Realtek RTL8852BE) - testing wifi speed on this, it does reach and remain steady at 270 mbps - no problems

With W520 - while testing the WiFi speed it starts from 30, 40 goes to 90 and sometimes just reaches 110 or 120 mbps (on 5 Ghz) and stays max 80 mbps odd (on 2.4 Ghz)- Dont know why - although I m not far from Wireless Router, just 3 feet away.
Connected to Wired connection - no prob, it hits 270 mbps
The above testing was done booting into Win-10
Booted into Linux and got same numbers like for Win-10 for both WiFi (max 110 mbps) and direct conn (full 270 mbps)

For Windows-10 I did all preliminary investigation like removing and reinstalling drivers etc but no luck
Seeing the same results for Win and Linux I felt something could be wring with motherboard so cleaned WiFi PCIe related ares properly, but no luck
Tried changing to a diff card - Intel Link 5100 (which is also 300 mbps) but it just didnt take it, bcos of BIOS white list issue

Checked our forum and found modded BIOS and update my BIOS to 1.45 ver (modded), put that Intel Link 5100 card but WiFi speed wasnt achieved even to 100 mbps

I also tried testing these WiFi cards (of course keeping PCIe slot empty) into MSATA socket but it didnt realize the presence of the cards.

I have ordered new PCIe card RTL8822CE so its gonna take a lil while to come.

But I dont know where am I standing here, is the board gone bad or could this be the card ?

Have a look at this:viewtopic.php?f=48&t=131812
If you can, cancel that Realtek card, they are sh!te.

Thanks for your help
I will see if it could be cancelled

As per the tests I conducted I am still little concerned if my motherboard is gone bad ?

jdwis wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 01, 2025 9:13 am

As per the tests I conducted I am still little concerned if my motherboard is gone bad ?

I doubt it.

The 6205 in my T520 has been misbehaving for the past few months so I just threw in a USB wireless mini-stick. Still on stock BIOS and W7.

These cards were nothing to write about when they were new and most certainly haven't aged well.

Good luck.

Thanks
I hope its not the board, just waiting for the WiFi card to come and test it

Received the card RTL8822CE and tested, it does go 270 MBps so all good
Clearly that earlier card was bad and not the motherboard

Thanks guys for you help support its just a bit stressful when u think of motherboard going bad

I borrowed another WiFi card RTL8852BE - FENVI from one of my mate
Tried installing it, WiFi works with Realtek Drivers, but Bluetooth does not show up in Device manager

Also tried removing these drivers and installing only and all drivers from FENVI site, but still no luck, bluetooth does not show up in device manager (although Bluetooth is enabled in BIOS) and works perfectly fine with other older chip RTL8822CE but not with RTL8852BE

Try disabling Bluetooth in the BIOS setup and enable WWAN. You can also try removing the old Bluetooth module itself-- IIRC it's a separate card from the WiFi, check the Hardware Maintenance Manual (open the HMM-Manuals link at the top of the page, just below the site banner, and use the browser's Find function to search for "W520").

So I disabled Bluetooth in the BIOS and enabled WWAN - that didnt help
Checked the Bluetooth socket which is near the touchapd and is empty - no separate module for bluetooth
the one which worked was from RTL8822CE as it has inbuilt bluetooth, just wanted to upgrade it to better ver (5.2) as some devices I cold not connect somehow

So it seems this RTL8852BE does not want to work on my W520 which was working fine on my mate's laptop, not sure where the problem was, but now I had to return it so cannot test this card further

thanks for you help guys