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Review on πŸ“Ά Blueshadow USB WiFi Adapter 600Mbps - Dual Band 2.4G/5G Mini Wi-Fi AC Network Card for Windows XP Vista/7/8/8.1/10 by Kevin Barbon

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Troubleshooting connection issues with Lenovo 5GHz laptop

So I have a Lenovo e545 laptop. Lenovo has a nasty habit of "whitelisting" its add-on cards, which means adding a special code to the PCI ID so the BIOS won't boot if it doesn't contain the Lenovo code. How can I find out? I just moved to the Comcast area and got a 60Mbps modem. The standard single channel card in Lenovo only works at 2.4 GHz. That means my download speed is 0.43Mbps! So I buy a dual band card from Amazon for $14.99. I plug it into the laptop, it dies while loading (see above). So I bite the bullet and get ready to buy a dual-band card from Lenovo. I get Lenovo parts on the phone and find out: 1) Neither range card is in stock! 2) they won't come until the end of May, 3) it's $45! Now you see why I will never buy a Lenovo laptop again, or any other laptop that whitelists its peripherals. What can I do? I am purchasing a dual band wireless USB adapter listed here. Lenovo's wireless software is a mess, so you'll need to remove the card from your laptop (google guide online). Otherwise it will keep trying to overwrite the USB adapter. Next, you need to remove the completely nasty and annoying Access Connections from Control Panel. Otherwise, your connection will be constantly dropped and the adapter will be permanently disconnected from the internet. This is another useless piece of junk from Lenovo. Actually, I can't say enough BAD about Lenovo laptops, but at least you'll get to work until you've raised enough money to buy a new laptop that hopefully doesn't have these issues.

Pros
  • Free for educational purposes
Cons
  • I vaguely remember