ThinkPad T60 Wireless Keeps Powering Off

One day I noticed my wireless kept powering off after five minutes. I am not sure why but I opened ThinkVantage Access Connections (Fn + F5), went to Configure > Global Connections and turned off “Enable automatic wireless LAN radio control”. That seemed to fix the problem.

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33 thoughts on “ThinkPad T60 Wireless Keeps Powering Off

  1. I just migrated over from my T40 to my T60 and this was happening to me. The solution provided here worked. Thanks.

    T60s aren’t really IBM, BTW, it’s Lenovo.

    What do I know, I just blog about Oracle stuff…

    Thanks

  2. Hey, check out your wireless master switch which is located at the side of your laptop. It may be switched off.

  3. I’ve had my T60 for a year, but I’d just been using windows wireless config. Then I did something with the ThinkVantage controller yesterday, and it took over, and started randomly powering off. A Google search for “thinkvantage keeps powering off my wireless” puts you at the top of the list – well-deserved! Thanks.

  4. Hey, thanks Raymond! I never noticed that button on the T60p. I don’t ever remember having one on by T42 or T20. I was getting to my wits end trying to figure out why the wireless just decided to stop working.

  5. Hey thanks, Frank. This was driving me crazy, and your fix did the trick. What a bunch of knuckleheads.

  6. thanks for this. very useful and solved the problem. interestingly, from my experience this bug doesn’t happen with WEP, only with WPA and its variants.

  7. This is actually an issue with the Power Management Driver and the Wireless Card Driver. I once called IBM about this and they had me go to their support site and search weird search terms and specifically install the drivers found from there. I asked them if system update won’t fix it.

    He told me it won’t since System Update doesn’t update the right drivers. If anything, after fixing this, if you do System Update, it’ll probably spoil it again.

    Kevin, by the way, the thinkpads have always been Lenovo.. They’re the ones who manufactured them even when IBM owned the company. As to the software, I believe IBM still does it.

  8. Worked great! THANK YOU!

    Pesky control — I wonder why it was working for so many months and then switched on with no intervention? Oh well, why ask why? LOL…

  9. This worked, thanks for helping me out. However, i could not figure out where the switch is – that Raymond is referring to. Which is the switch and how does it look like?
    thanks
    Ravi.

  10. Yes, Raymond… come back, please…. I can’t find the switch either and keep getting the msg that I need to use the HW switch to turn my wireless on….

  11. Using this worked for me…
    “C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\ConnectUtilities\KillAC.exe”
    It kills the program that keeps shutting off the wireless.
    In fact i put a shortcut to it in my startup…

  12. yeah you’re the man! it worked. i was worried why is that happening. i’ve been waiting for the correct ‘system update’ but still it wasn’t working.

    the wierd thing bout my wireless is it used to be normal, just couple days ago it started.

    thx anyway.

  13. Also, check the properties of your wireless connection and ensure that the box titled “Wireless Intermediate Drive” is ticked. I am unsure how but mine was unchecked and so the radio would not respond.

  14. Hi there. I was able to fix it, thanks to this thread. I was unable to get Fn F5 to get me the control that was mentioned at the top of this page. But someone mentioned KILLac.exe. I had it on my laptop, just not in the location mentioned. I did a search for it from Control Panel. From the results, I asked it to open the folder (right click for this option). I saw a setup.exe file, so I double clicked. It brought up a utility, and I asked it to “Repair” something. That seems to have worked – So far! If it doesn’t, I’ll update this blog. THANK YOU!

  15. thanks man, you saved me a lot time setting my ibm t60p, it kept turning off the wireless every few minutes without any visible reason

  16. phew!!! this really works…(turned off ‘Enable automatic wireless LAN radio control.’) Thanks a ton Frank!!

  17. Thanks so much! Retyping my wireless password every 5 seconds was DEFINITELY getting annoying!

  18. Great Solution! THANKS!!!
    Fn5 on T61 brought up different window. I found the correct window under ThinkVantage Button/ThinkVantage Technologies/Access Connections/ … then the third drop down menu ‘configure’ has the above mentioned ‘global settings’

  19. Frank,

    My Lenovo T60p Intel wireless card suddenly began to
    stop working after 1 1/2 years. I rolled backed the drivers, I downloaded Lenovo’s updates. I tried changing various settings. Nothing helped. I thought I might need a new wireless card. I then found your suggestion.
    It worked!

    Thank you!!

  20. hi people.. ive read ur messages there at the top of the page .. i wanna seek for help also,,,,,

    ive got also a lenovo with a swith to turn on or off the wireless,,, before its so easy for me to connect through it.. but now im really having headaches troubleshooting my wireless problem.

    though i switch it on ,the LED does not light, so i cant access Fn+F5. fixing it . the diagnose thing told me that my wireless capability is turn off (even if its really on) ..radio (hw switch) is also off…

    ..ive checked my network adapter and found that its enabled and working properly….hmmmmpzzzzz,,, anybody? pls help…

    : thanks

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