Return-path: Received: from mail.candelatech.com ([208.74.158.172]:41209 "EHLO ns3.lanforge.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754397Ab2CLVwu (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:52:50 -0400 Received: from [192.168.100.111] (firewall.candelatech.com [70.89.124.249]) (authenticated bits=0) by ns3.lanforge.com (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id q2CLqnIe032213 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:52:49 -0700 Message-ID: <4F5E7031.4000401@candelatech.com> (sfid-20120312_225254_930303_F3662791) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:52:49 -0700 From: Ben Greear MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org" Subject: Hacking PCI-ids to allow Atheros NIC into Lenovo laptop. Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: 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? Thanks, Ben -- Ben Greear Candela Technologies Inc http://www.candelatech.com