MHF4 Antennas Mod for T430s,When Thinkpad moved to MHF4

[strider]

Hi,

Is there MHF4 connector antennas (possibly from newer thinkpads) that fit/could be easily mounted in T430s?
In what series/year Thinkpad (or other Lenovo laptops) switched to MHF4 connector?
Or what model you know for sure has MHF4 connector?

Or please specify exact model of your WIFI adapter and exact laptop model (any after T430s), I will figure out the rest.

Whats the distance between mounting screws in your left and right antennas?

Going to upgrade screen to IPS (1080p is enough), therefore replacing top screen lid if needed if fine too.
Don't know much about IPS screen upgrade yet.
Need at least 3 WIFI antennas.
Please share photos if you have MHF4 antenna connectors.
Thank you!

[TPFanatic]

Personally I would make my attempt with MHF4 to MHF1 cable adapters/extenders. I prefer the engineering of the OEM antennas and have had poor experience trying to custom fit non-original antennas. Whoever built my second-hand X330 totally fubared the retrofit of aftermarket antennas, which is I suspect a big reason it was put up for sale in the first place, and I had to cram back in surplus T500 antennas to get working wifi, and it's still inferior to an OEM X220/X230 setup.

I believe Lenovo fully adopted MHF4 by the Haswell/**40 gen era, for example my T540p.

[strider]

Personally I would make my attempt with MHF4 to MHF1 cable adapters/extenders.

Thank you for your response, I'm will definitely try it 1st. I'm just afraid I won't be able to fit the extra length of adapters/extenders (I'm still waiting for adapters). There's a certain route for cables and especially the place where 3 original connectors connect to 3 adapters could be tight, might work though won't know until later.

Wish there was a tool to crimp MHF4 - cannot find any even in China.

[strider]

Whoever built my second-hand X330 totally fubared the retrofit of aftermarket antennas

Do you know what exactly was wrong with aftermarket antennas?

[strider]

have had poor experience trying to custom fit non-original antennas.

This is interesting experience!
please tell me more what exactly you tried?
Was it OEM antenna but from another laptop, or some kind of stickers from China?

[TPFanatic]

Do you know what exactly was wrong with aftermarket antennas?

This being an X330 it's a modified laptop and it came with two MHF1 and three MHF4 antennas that were all installed improperly. For the MHF1s' the metal strips themselves had been totally crumpled and the soldering looked mediocre, for the MHF4s' the metal strips had been installed 180 degrees opposite their intended position to the brackets for the antenna wires clearly marked by copper pads. As I am at least the second owner, I don't know who was the original modder of this machine, if it was xyte.ch or someone else. But whoever did it, I think poorly of them. Also pulling off the front bezel destroyed the LCD since this modder had taped the bezel to the LCD's control board. This was unnecessary to secure the LCD in the lid.

I tried harvesting various MHF1 antennas out of an HP Elitebook where the antennas are flexible strips like aluminum foil, these worked poorly. Then I fit MHF1 antennas out of a T500, these use fixed aluminum plates, and I taped them inside the lid. The machine's been alright since, but I believe it's not as good as with OEM X220/X230 antennas.


In another experience I had a Z60m where one of the antennas got ripped and I replaced it with a T42 antenna, but it's performed poorly since.

[strider]

Thank you, its useful experience!

Do you know whats the purpose of foil flexible sticker such as in T540P antenna? (you seem to have experience with it)
I wonder if plays some electrical role and a significant part of antenna?

My T430s has similar foil sticker.

[RealBlackStuff]

Check this adapter: https://www.ebay.ie/itm/193394315889

[strider]

Check this adapter: https://www.ebay.ie/itm/193394315889

Thank you, my new card is Mini-PCI, only need to convert antennas to MHF4, not the slot itself.
Interesting though as another option.

Anybody tried such adapter in T430s?
Not sure if there's enough space for such adapter+M.2 card+cables as there's a lid right on bottom?
Sorry cannot find how to attach a photo here without uploading it to 3rd party site.

[TPFanatic]

I have a card like that, the AW-CB160H with three MHF4 antennas in the MCPIE factor.
Many sellers of these cards include three MHF4 to MHF1 cable extenders.
I would seek to use those extenders if using this card in a ThinkPad.

Those full-size adapters like RBS linked will fit in the X220/X230, for instance, which place the WLAN slot opposing the WWAN slot, but this gets in the way of fitting full height mSATA SSDs (half-height mSATA exist, though). Older models which used full-size WLAN will fit these with no problem, eg. T500, T61.

There are aliexpress specials that take a modern wifi 6 card intended to be soldered onto the laptop mainboard, but the bootleggers instead fit it to a MPCIE half-height adapter. So this is an option for machines like T430s which can only physically fit the half-height cards.

[strider]

I have a card like that, the AW-CB160H with three MHF4 antennas in the MCPIE factor.
Many sellers of these cards include three MHF4 to MHF1 cable extenders.
I would seek to use those extenders if using this card in a ThinkPad.

Thank you, I wish I started this topic earlier Thats exactly what I already ordered with 3 adapters (still waiting to arrive).
The thing is the included MHF4 to MHF1 extenders are all 5cm long.
I disassembled and pulled 5cm of one cable onto keyboard side - don't see where to fit it extra 5cm, besides between keyboard and motherboard, but that could push onto motherboard and destroy it.
Would post a photo of this, but cannot find how here.

[strider]

Anybody seen U.FL or MHF4 crimper?

[strider]

Anybody has experience soldering 2 wires (1.4mm and 1.13mm diameter) together for AC/N protocol?
Is it OK for the high frequency signal?

[strider]

I have a card like that, the AW-CB160H with three MHF4 antennas in the MCPIE factor.

Would you please share a screenshot or values of AW-CB160H from device manager -> right click -> properties or information -> choose tab smth like "Device ID" (this is from Win7).

Looking for Ven #, Subsys #, Rev #, Dev #, CC #.
On Win7 it looks like "PCI\VEN_xxx&DEV_xxx&SUBSYS_xxxx" (there's 4 such lines in variations).
Drivers cannot find my AW-CB160H on Win7.
I wonder if its not fake or BIOS issue. I do see new "Unknown" network controller.
Would be very helpful for me.

Also a screenshot from e.g. AIDA soft from Devices->PCI Devices -> choose AW-CB160H would be super helpful (need to run AIDA as Admin).
Thank you.

[TPFanatic]

Install this, it will work with this driver: https://www.asus.com/us/networking-iot- ... me=PCEAC68 It is the Asus PCE AC68 desktop network card driver. It uses the same chip as the AW-CB160H.

In order to make the integrated Bluetooth work I think you need to tape Pin 51 with kapton tape, but I never got around to trying it with this card, and only the built-in ThinkPad BT module works with Fn+F5 Hotkey.

[RealBlackStuff]

You bought a Broadcom Azurewave card with Bluetooth 4.0 instead of Intel AX200 or AX210 with BT 5.1 (or better).
But check this: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.p ... 5&p=866808

[TPFanatic]

Unfortunately there is currently no support for 802.11ax in Windows 7, and there are no drivers for AX200 or other Wifi 6/6e/802.11ax.
The broadcom is unique in having 3 antennas, 802.11ac, and using MHF4. I think any improvement from the 3 antennas is negated by needing MHF1 adapters to retrofit.

Personally I would recommend for Windows 7 luddites like myself, stick with whatever N card already fits, or go for the AC7260 or another 802.11ac card with MHF1, so anything but the AW-CB160H.

For newer OS users including Linux on old Thinkpads, 802.11ax M.2 in a full size MPCIE adapter with MHF1 adapters is an option for machines with a full size MPCIE slot (last being X201,T500,etc.. Check The Thinkwiki). Otherwise the Aliexpress specials that solder an 802.11ax BGA card onto a half size MPCIE adapter with MHF1 terminals soldered on covers the interim machines up to **30 gen with only a half size MPCIE slot.

[strider]

You bought a Broadcom Azurewave card with Bluetooth 4.0 instead of Intel AX200 or AX210 with BT 5.1 (or better).

There's no driver for Win7 for AX200.
May be if/when I switch to win10 (which I hate btw )

There might be separate bluetooth hardware for Win7, I have it in my hands (from T430s), its really small.

[strider]

Otherwise the Aliexpress specials that solder an 802.11ax BGA card onto a half size MPCIE adapter with MHF1 terminals soldered on covers the interim machines up to **30 gen with only a half size MPCIE slot.

If you mean smth like AX-3000H (don't remember exactly) - its based on AX200/210 and has no Win7 driver either

[strider]

Anybody seen datasheet for T430s antennas?
Need to know which ones are for 2.4ghz and which for 5ghz, which is for WIFI or Bluetooth.

I also bought AW-123H for 2nd T430s laptop and not sure whats the best way to connect antennas?

[TPFanatic]

Gray is Main
Black is Aux
White is 3rd antenna if equipped (eg. middle antenna on 6300N, 5300N, 4965N, 3965N)
These antenna are intended to work on either/both 2.4ghz and 5ghz band.

Red/Blue are for optional WWAN card.

There is no Bluetooth antenna.

You should not use Red/Blue WWAN antenna with a WLAN card, they are intended for the broadband bandwidth which is different than WLAN and I believe there is some risk to the card if they are used in place of correct WLAN antenna? Like there is risk of damaging the card if using it with no antenna.

Re: AX3000, I present this option for Linux | Win 10+ users. I personally will seek out cards like this the day Windows 7 is finally dead and I adopt Linux forever.

[strider]

Gray is Main
Black is Aux

This is helpful, but I also got AW-123H, which has NO Main/Aux markings.
It has antennas marked "1" and "2".

These antenna are intended to work on either/both 2.4ghz and 5ghz band.

Where you got this info from?
Sorry I am taught to question everything;)

Red/Blue are for optional WWAN card.

Yes, no doubt here.

[TPFanatic]

Because your Wifi card is dual band and you can connect to both 2.4 ghz or 5 ghz access points with the same card, same antenna.

I would interpret 1 to be main and 2 to be aux.

How about you swap them around and see what happens.

I've stuck the WWAN antennas on a WLAN card and it works fine.