Make a ThinkPad accept any MiniPCI Card - avoid 1802 error
November 18th, 2004
If after installing your new miniPCI card into your ThinkPad laptop you get an 1802 error at boot, here is the solution.
Disclaimer: This worked for me, but I am unable to make any guarantee that it will work for you. Furthermore, if you really care about IBM’s warranty, you may want to pass this one and buy your miniPCI card from IBM directly.
After getting my ThinkPad R40 from eBay, I got a wireless miniPCI card from there as well. I bought an Intel card, to avoid any compatibility issues. Little did I know… All recent ThinkPads have an internal list of miniPCI cards they will accept. Note that this is not only based on the model number, but also some internal numbers which are different for different batches of the exact same card.
Here is a detailed explanation. The simplest solution is:
- download no-1802.com
- boot into DOS mode
- run no-1802.com
If nothing happens - you should be able to finally install your card.
If your laptop came without a floppy drive, you may need to create or find a boot CD. I found some free boot-CD-generating program and created a CD with an option to boot into Windows 98. If you have Easy CD Creator, Nero, or some such software, they all let you create boot CDs, but you may need to obtain an image of a bootable floppy disk first (which means you have to create the CD on another computer that does have a floppy.)
This Command-Tab post has links to CD ISO image and a floppy image you can use.
Entry Filed under: tech
39 Comments Add your own
1. Dusko | March 30th, 2005 at 7:26 am
Do you know where i can possibly find that no-1802.com since it is not available on the linked site? BTW. “Svemir” means space, right?
2. Svemir | March 30th, 2005 at 11:34 am
You did not click the correct link. It is in the string “download no-1802.com”. Or, here it is again:
http://www.congenio.de/infos/no1802.com
3. Svemir | March 30th, 2005 at 11:36 am
P.S. Svemir means Cosmos, not just space
4. Demiurge | August 18th, 2005 at 8:12 pm
Would you mind mailing me no-1802.com? That site seems to have been pulled.
TIA!
5. Svemir | September 15th, 2005 at 11:20 am
The site has not been pulled. Your browser may be playing tricks on you (e.g. Firefox may try to open a .com file directly…)
6. Dave | June 1st, 2007 at 9:22 am
Thanks worked great on my X31 2672-QG0.
However Firefox tries to open this directly, so Right click and “Save Link As.”
7. Paul | June 14th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
More info on the need to boot to DOS? I can create a bootable CD that boots to Windows — or I can open a DOS / command.exe window on my PC. Why/how do I boot to DOS directly on my PC?
I don’t have a floppy drive on my thinkpad; what’s the best/free way to make a DOS bootable CD?
Thanks.
8. svemir | June 14th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
I could not find the program I originally used to create a bootable CD. However you do it, you should be able to make it not to start Windows directly, but to boot into DOS mode. You may need to press F8 or something while booting. I am not using that ThinkPad anymore, so I can not give you any additional details. Once you get to the command prompt, just run the no-1802.com (I think you can run it from the hard drive, it does not have to be on the CD you boot from.)
9. Jason404 | June 21st, 2007 at 12:46 pm
If I run this program, what is actually done to the machine? Is it a permanent BIOS change?
Also, does the blue Access IBM and all the wifi related Thinkpad software still work with an unauthorised card?
Cheers
10. svemir | June 21st, 2007 at 1:27 pm
no-1802.com makes a (safe) change to CMOS - it does not change the BIOS. Access IBM and all wifi-related Thinkpad software keeps working fine (as far as I remember.)
11. Rick | June 23rd, 2007 at 11:30 am
The No-1802 will not work on a R32 (2659-DU2)
12. help!!1 | July 18th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
i read the instructions and they all start with ‘press F1 and deactivate the wlan card. but i can’t find a way to deactivate it in BIOS 3.05a. please help me
13. svemir | July 18th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
If you use no-1802.com as explained above, you do not need to disable anything. At least I did not need to.
14. Elias | August 26th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
sorry but am not so good with computer, I downloaded the ‘no-1802′ cd iso, but I don’t know to install it. I tried writing it to cd as surgested, but it doesn’t boot from cd when I restart, or even when I try running the cd , I just get error msgs. Please can you try to explain the whole process in layman’s terms, so that even me whos not so good in computers can understand how to remove the 1802 error.
15. dathai | December 31st, 2007 at 8:14 am
worked and ironically had to use it on an ibm card.x40 ibm even with bios update still didnt recognise the 2915 wlan card.So no-1802 fixed that. many thanks for this.
16. Mike | February 8th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Can somebody please provide a working like to this file, the link is now dead. Or please email it. Thank you.
17. svemir | February 9th, 2008 at 9:28 am
I have updated the link for no-1802.com in the post, and I also linked to another post which has bootable CD and floppy images you can use (I did not use those myself, but according to the comments on the website they seem to work.) I also updated the “detailed explanation” link, because the old one also went missing…
18. Alex | February 18th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Hi, I would like to try this file on my Lenovo Thinkpad X61 tablet to installa a new DELL 1490 wireless card mini PCI-E (I have to change the native Intel wireless card because I installed Apple Leopard and Intel is not compatible with Airport)..
Con I try this hack without collateral effects?!
Thanks in advance.
Alex
19. svemir | February 18th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
no1802.com will probably NOT work on X61. I am not aware of anything that works for X41 and above.
20. mckenzy | March 4th, 2008 at 8:21 am
works flawlessly on my x31 2672-CPA
solid stuff. thank you so much…
Broadcom minipci
21. viiiwonder | March 10th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Worked great on a t40, installed a new engenius emp-3602.
22. Patrick | March 31st, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Hi Rick and all!
Why do you think that this trick won’t work on an R32? Is it not worth trying it on that ThinkPad at all? Please respond, for I intend to try it on my R32.
23. svemir | March 31st, 2008 at 8:12 pm
According to the thinkwiki.org site linked above:
On the R32, T43, X41, X60 and probably others, the BIOS hacks and the “no-1802″ utility don’t work.
24. Lawren | April 18th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I have a T30 that started throwing the 1802 error on boot for no reason. The error has never happened before. The network card has never been changed and neither has the BIOS been flashed.
I have a USB floppy with a DOS boot disk and the computer STILL throws this error without letting me boot into DOS to run no-1802.com. I have set the USB floppy to be the 1st boot device and the network card (when it appears in the list - sometimes it does not - to be the last. Still no go. I am exceptionally frustrated. Any ideas?
25. svemir | April 18th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Perhaps you can disable the network card before reboot, so that you can get into the DOS mode and run no-1802.
26. Macintosh | June 1st, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Hello !
With my R40, the “no-1802″ utility don’t work…
I find a CD iso file at
Works fine with my old ThinkPad R40 and a WLAN XG-650 low price…
27. Alex | June 28th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I encountered similar problem that Lawren had.
However, I was able to use my USB floppy drive and boot from there to run no1802.com.
If the USB floppy drive does not work for you, you may want to try a directly attached floppy drive (in place of the CD/DVD drive slot) and go from there.
28. Ehsan | September 18th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
It worked on my T42p. But the ThinkVantage Access Connection can not recognize my wireless anymore although the Windows built-in wireless manager could easily connect me to my wireless network just perfect!
29. » Third Party MiniP&hellip | December 1st, 2008 at 1:25 am
[…] came across this website http://www.thirdblessing.com that had three simple […]
30. Tomy Zau | December 6th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
works flawlessly on my
(notebook : IBM R32 Series 2659-HT3)
solid stuff. thank you so much…
Broadcom minipci
(Wireless Card : Intel 2915ABG minipci SPEC)
Con I try this hack without collateral effects?!
Thanks in advance.
Please!!Please!!Please!!Please!!Please!!
@_@ *_* Tomy Zau (Taiwan)
31. Maniek | January 1st, 2009 at 8:46 pm
on my R32 2658-G3G don’t work
any solusion for this problem ?
32. Aaron | March 1st, 2009 at 5:36 am
I have a thinkpad a31 laptop and have been trying to install a intel internal wireless card with out progress. I came accross this site but i haven’t see any step that a lay man would take to accomplish this obstacle. Can some one help, step by step instruction would be great.
Thanks
33. amh | March 20th, 2009 at 8:52 am
The person who wrote this no-1802 has done a great service to the world. Hats off and many thanks! Just tell me your paypal address.
34. svemir | March 20th, 2009 at 9:31 am
This utility was developed by Tisheng Chen, and announced at linux-thinkpad.org in 2004. Not sure if he has paypal, but you may be able to reach him there.
35. Nicola | March 20th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
IBM T30 mod 2366 , Hamlet and Conceptronic pcmcia WLan make 1802 error.
Boot whit “not-1802″ floppy boot : all ok !
Very thanks to all !
36. Tim | March 26th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Worked great on an X31 type 2884. I created a USB stick formatted using the instructions/files at
Thanks for the tip.
http://www.lowfps.com/creating-a-bootable-usb-thumb-drive,
copied no1802.com to the drive, set the Thinkpad to boot from the USB HDD, and it worked the first time!
37. Phil | March 27th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Worked great on my A31. All I did was put it on a floppy, book my laptop into DOS mode using an old W98 Boot Disk, inserted the floppy with the no1802, ran the program and no more error! This was much easier than the ethtool method I used on my old thinkpad and the command-tab instructions floating around. Thanks much!
38. Clayton.Bigsby | April 8th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Is this reversible? Suppose I try no1802, but it doesn’t work. Can I get it back to what it was before? If yes, how?
39. svemir | April 9th, 2009 at 8:28 am
So far I have not heard of anyone that needed to revert the effects of no1802. The worst that happened so far was that it would not really affect anything. So, even if it does not work for you, you should still be able to install an “approved” card. You may want to check this page for additional information: http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_unauthorized_MiniPCI_network_card
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed