Return-path: Received: from mail.candelatech.com ([208.74.158.172]:43945 "EHLO ns3.lanforge.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756789Ab2CLWgu (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:36:50 -0400 Message-ID: <4F5E7A81.8090605@candelatech.com> (sfid-20120312_233654_329992_743B8CF0) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:36:49 -0700 From: Ben Greear MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Christian Lamparter CC: "linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org" Subject: Re: Hacking PCI-ids to allow Atheros NIC into Lenovo laptop. References: <4F5E7031.4000401@candelatech.com> <201203122332.16325.chunkeey@googlemail.com> In-Reply-To: <201203122332.16325.chunkeey@googlemail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On 03/12/2012 03:32 PM, Christian Lamparter wrote: > On Monday, March 12, 2012 10:52:49 PM Ben Greear wrote: >> It seems we bought a Lenovo laptop that has a BIOS lock where it will only >> support certain wifi NICs based on the pci-id. It came with an Intel >> NIC, so at least that ID must work... >> >> One way around this might be to over-write the pci-id of an Atheros NIC >> in it's non-volatile storage to make it look like an Intel, at least until >> the kernel boots. >> >> Then maybe add some sort of ugly code to force the Atheros driver >> to manage this Intel pci-id (and probably disable the same pci-id in >> the Intel driver). >> >> Has anyone tried doing anything like this? Any suggestions for a cleaner >> way to go about this? > Been down this road before. First an old X41 Tablet and more recently a HP > dv6 laptop. > > I think if you manage to reprogram the cards pciids then you are more than > halfway there. Because theoretically, you can get away with adding the fake > intel id to ath9k through sysfs: > > echo "8086 dead"> /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ath9k/new_id > [for more information, take a look at the new_id sysfs interface] > (Of course, you'll have to get rid of the intel driver first) > > That said, in both cases I risked flashing a modded bios. So whitelists are > no longer a problem. > > PS: AFAIK [Maybe some QCA dev can verify this]: all AR9300+ have OTP ROMs > for the pciids. So you might want to get an older AR9280 for your laptop. We're hoping to use the WPEA-127N. Thanks for all the info! Ben -- Ben Greear Candela Technologies Inc http://www.candelatech.com