[ltp] Intel 5100/5300 failures at 802.11n 5GHz?

[Jesse Sheidlower]

I have two ThinkPads with Intel WiFi cards, a W500 with the 5100 AGN and
an X301 with the 5300 AGN. I've consistently had problems connecting to
802.11n on the 5GHz band. I would either not see the SSID for this band,
or I would see it but be unable to connect to it.

For some time I assumed it was the fault of my router, but I've recently
sat down and done a lot of testing, and it seems that the router is fine
(a Mac connects to the 5GHz N band, for example). Also, both TPs connect
to the 5GHz band on 802.11a without a problem (the 2.4GHz has always
been fine), so it's not like the 5GHz band isn't working at all.

How do I figure out what's going on here? I've searched around, and
there seems to have been a problem with older drivers for these cards,
but that were fixed a number of versions ago. I'm running 2.6.35-25 on
both machines. Using 802.11a is a tolerable compromise, but I do need
the speed of N for various tasks.

Thanks.

Jesse Sheidlower