How do I get my Lenovo x220 Gobi chips into NDIS mode?

July 21, 2011 9:46 AM

How do I get my Lenovo x220 Gobi chips into NDIS mode?

I have a large quantity of Lenovo x220 laptops with built in Gobi Mobile Broadband chips (Sierra Wireless MC8355 - Gobi 3000) that we will be using on the Sprint network.

Lenovo's pre-installed ThinkVantage Access Connections, far as I can tell, has no option to switch the card into always-on NDIS mode, and Lenovo support has no idea what I am talking about*.

I've tried replacing Access Connections with Sprint's own Smartview software, which has that option, but it doesn't officially support this card, and in fact doesn't even detect it.

Does anyone know a way I can get this chip into NDIS mode? Are there AT commands or something I can send it, or a third party workaround I haven't been able to Google?

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*[Access connections does have some basic functions they likely intended to take the place of NDIS, like an option to (eventually) auto switching to mobilebroadband when no other network is detected, but due to our setup and other software we use (Netmotion if that means anything to anyone) we explicitly need the card to turn itself on on bootup and stay on, which is what NDIS mode does on every other comp/card/provider we've used.]

posted by John Kenneth Fisher to Computers & Internet (1 answer total)

I don't have a specific workaround for you, but if I were in your shoes, I'd be looking around in the laptop BIOS for power management options, and how they affect wireless functions. On some laptops with limited battery life, turning on wireless functions and keeping them on, regardless of usage, is seen as a poor power management strategy, and wireless chips that aren't busy processing data are routinely turned off. The x220 machines are sold as having "all day" or even 24 hour battery life, and I bet, to get that kind of uptime on battery, they are aggressively managing all power drains, including wireless functions, not only for the direct battery drain they create, but for the heat that they create, which causes incidental battery drain via cooling fan, etc.

That kind of design can interact with other design goals too, in a small machine, such as the decision to not include auxiliary chip level heat sinks on wireless chips, because you know, as a designer, that you'll be operating the chips only intermittently, via software control, and thus will never exceed "naked" package thermal dissipation. If that's the case, you may not be able to run with wireless continuously on, without overheating the wireless chip.
posted by paulsc at 12:47 PM on July 22, 2011