Group: Hardware/Restrictions/Mini PCIe slot restrictions on wireless cards

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Description of the issue

Some manufacturers restrict which wireless cards can be used in the Mini PCI Express slot. At least Dell, HP, Lenovo (IBM) and Toshiba have been implicated. When a non-whitelisted card is installed the systems will show an error message (e.g. 'Unauthorized') or otherwise refuse to boot. The whitelist is located in the proprietary BIOS. The given reasoning for this behavior is the regulation of the wireless spectrum by FCC and other national organizations. There are ways around this by modifying either the Wifi card or the BIOS. This is something that has to be taken into consideration when trying to assemble a computer system which would require as little proprietary software/firmware to operate as possible.

Possible solutions

External links