Thinkpad T480 WiFi 6E Upgrade Guide | Intel AX210 | Lenovo laptop DIY 

Glad you like the guides! Save for the dual heat pipe cooling fan/thermal repaste video that's about to go live next week, I think I have all possible upgrades for the T480 covered in my channel. Do feel free to drop a comment and ask questions, if you need clarifications about anything though. Cheers!

@@ChezDoesStuff I've actually just ordered a 64GB (32x2) RAM (a TeamGroup T-Force Zeus one since it was the cheapest one I could find) and 1TB Samsung m.2 NVMe SSD today, so I'm really looking forward to finally tinker with my T480 when those arrive. As for the wifi card, have you got any tips with buying them? Like what brands to watch out for and whatnot. So far I've looked through various e-commerce websites and found OKN and Berwood among other ones. I suppose the reason why I haven't bought one yet is because I'm not sure which one's a trusted brand, especially when the listing shows a different spec than what was in the product description and pictures.

@@virtualfreiios9597 exciting! I've had good experiences with TeamGroup's T-Create line. My T480, T580, and T15g gen1 all have them installed. For the WiFi card, I can only attest to Intel's AX210, since that's what I have experience with. I just checked ebay and saw this model readily available from various sellers. $16-$20 sounds about right and close to what I bought mine for.

@@ChezDoesStuff So, update on my T480. The 1TB SSD I ordered arrived yesterday and the 64GB RAM arrived today, and I successfully and very easily replaced the ones that came when I first purchased the laptop (definitely thanks to your video guides). Had some panicked moments especially with the RAM after installing-after signing in into the laptop, it just suddenly shuts down. Good thing it resolved itself when I fell asleep; I did a memtest prior to that to check if the module I bought had some defects, but there was none so all's good. Right now, I'm waiting for the wifi card to arrive as well and now considering buying a new heat pipe cooling fan for it as soon as possible since my T480 only has the single heat pipe one. Slowly but surely, my T480's becoming quite the beast of a machine. So happy!

@@virtualfreiios9597 sounds like everything's going according to plan!! I forgot to mention that it takes a while for new RAM to be read by the laptop on first boot. Also, if you ordered the RAM from Amazon, you can easily have it replaced for peace of mind. :)

Thank you! And happy modding!

You're welcome! Glad to be of help. Nice touge video, too. I might upload mine soon. :)

Awesome. Can I assume this will work on a P43s too

You're welcome!

Hope the videos serve you well!

Thanks for stopping by!

Glad you liked it!

I can only comment for the Tx80 series. I didn't have to deal with whitelists. As far as I know, only the WWAN cards involve whitelists - for this generation, anyway. I suggest buying the AX210 from a store with great return policies, just in case it won't work with your T560. I have a link in the video description, should it prove useful. Cheers

I unfortunately do not have the experience to answer that. You can purchase from one of the links I provided to have returns as a safety net.

I don't have any experience with the T480s to reliably answer this. Sorry!

Hi, I just upgraded the WiFi AX210 in my T480. I was able to connect MX3 mouse via BT to it, the laptop's BT also was visible from my mobile.

Glad to help! First order of business is to update the BIOS and, more importantly, the Thunderbolt firmware ASAP. The USB-C ports have a tendency to self-destruct when left un-updated for too long. For the Wi-Fi card - it should work, but I've never tried them and do not know where to find pertinent drivers for them. Cheers

@@ChezDoesStuff Thank you again so much for the almost instant reply. BIOS and TB FW are now up to date. I will stick to the AX210 that you recommended :) Do you know if there is any way to disable the nVidia dGPU on models that have the MX150? Again Big Thanks!!! And for the great content around the T480. It really is an amazing device

@@marioauditore571 great to hear! I have the Nvidia on my T580 and never really figured out how to do a full disable of the GPU. I tried disabling it via Device Manager, but that didn't seem to do much :(

Technically, they should be interchangeable. I just wanted to leave things the way I found them. If your antenna plugs won't catch for some reason, just very carefully align the center pins before pressing down to avoid bending them.

I wasn't able to check this and do not have access to the T480 and T580, unfortunately. Hope someone else can chime in.

atm its an intel ax210 chip I would say. supports wifi6 and depending on the brand bluetooth 5.3

I haven't tried that one yet, so I can't say for sure. :)

Yes, but the pre installed antennas would likely work better since the manufacturer has already determined the best placement for them.

Interesting. Still works fine though!

You're welcome and thanks for watching!

Physically, yes. I am not sure if there was any sort of hardware whitelist implemented for the T490 or P43s. To be safe, you can try buying from the link I provided and just return it if it doesn't work out for you.

@@ChezDoesStuff It is soldered on for the T490 and its variants. You are lucky.

Better speed and range, if you have a WiFi 6 network. It can also do multiple in multiple out (MIMO) connections with non-WiFi 6 routers, so there's a little speed benefit there as well.

thank you!@@ChezDoesStuff

I can't say for certain, since I do not have a X280. I'd be surprised if it doesn't though. Cheers

That's really convenient. I miss playing around with Linux.

I think some folks have seen success with that card.