Upgrade from AX201 to BE201 WiFi Card

[DrOutis]

Hello!

I have a ThinkPad P17 Gen1 laptop (10th Generation Core i9-10885H processor) and I'd like to upgrade the WiFi card.

Currently the laptop mounts an AX201 (Gig+) card with (M.2 CNVio2) and I'm wondering if I could upgrade it to a BE201 (M.2 CNVio3). Are those connectors compatible? It looks like there's only a driver for both devices, so I'm a bit lost. Here's a comparison between the cards.

Thanks!

[n_scott_pearson · Accepted solution]

No, sorry, CNVio2 and CNVio3 are not compatible with each other. The socket can usually be used with a non-CNVi card, however. You could try using the BE200 card instead. I say try, because there are cases where non-CNVi cards won't work and there are cases where the platform's BIOS implements inclusion/exclusion lists to stop you from using unknown cards (or, in slimy cases, not purchased (at some markup) from the platform vendor).

Hope this helps,

...S

[DrOutis]

Hello Scott, thanks a lot! Your answer really helped me. I suppose I'm gonna ask for some insight about BE200 compatibility on the Lenovo forum.

Happy holidays!