My Gateway M-6750 laptop uses a Marvell MC85 wireless card, for which there is no native Linux driver. Previously I got it working with Ubuntu 9.10 using an NDIS driver for Windows XP. Recently I installed Ubuntu 11.04 from scratch on this machine (i.e. wiping the Linux ext4 partition) and consequently lost wireless access again.

Instead of trying to locate, extract and install the XP NDIS driver again, this time I decided to solve the problem in hardware. Intel’s network hardware has good Linux support. I ordered an Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 half-size mini PCIE networking card, which cost me about $35. Here is how I installed it.

Here is a picture of the bottom of the laptop. Remove the three screws on the cover closest to you (the one with a hard disk icon and “miniPCI” written on it) and open the cover. Use a non-magnetic screwdriver because the hard disk is under that cover too. As a matter of caution, use only non-magnetic tools near hard disks or risk losing your data.

Remove the screw that holds the MC85 card in the mini PCI slot on the right. Remove the network card. Carefully unplug the three antenna wires. Connect those wires to the corresponding locations on the Intel card. Insert the Intel card into the socket on the left. Note: I had first tried the Intel card in the socket on the right but in that case it always behaved as if the Wireless On/Off switch was in the Off position, regardless of its actual state. Even rebooting didn’t make it recognize the switch state. The left mini PCI socket did not have this problem 🙂

Because the Intel card is a half size card you will also need a half size to full size miniPCI adapter to be able to screw down the card to secure it. Instead I simply used a stiff piece of cardboard (an old business card) to hold it in place and closed the cover again. If you take your laptop PC on road a lot I recommend doing it properly (don’t sue me if the cardboard trick melts your motherboard or burns down your house).

Download the Intel driver and utility set for Windows from the Intel website using a wired connection. Under Ubuntu the card seemed to work first time I rebooted into it. I just had to connect to the WLAN.

UPDATE:

I fixed it properly using a half size to full size Mini PCI-E (PCI Express) adapter converter bracket by Shenzhen Fenvi Technology Co., Ltd. in Guangdong. I had found it on Alibaba. I paid $9.50 by Paypal and a bit over a week later five sets of brackets and matching screws arrived by mail from Hong Kong (one set is only $1.90 but the minimum order was 5, so that’s what I ordered). The brackets come with about a dozen each of two kinds of screws. Four of the smaller screws worked fine for me.