Upgraded Wi-Fi. T61 BIOS POST error: “1802: Unauthorized network card is plugged in - Power off and remove the miniPCI network card.”

Bought a 2nd-hand T61. Wi-Fi card is a ghost. The ip a command shows no wireless device. The lspci also shows no wi-fi NIC. Only ethernet works. BIOS has a poorly worded option like “radio frequency enable”. It’s set to “ON” (strangely, there is no other option; ON is the only choice). The physical switch is also on. Both stock Debian and Knoppix cannot see the wi-fi NIC. I also booted a Windows disk just to see if a wild change of OS would make a difference. Windows also sees no wi-fi NIC (nothing in device manager).

I happened to have another wi-fi mini-PCI card. Same brand but newer (adds 802.11n). I installed it. BIOS POST immediately says: “1802: Unauthorized network card is plugged in - Power off and remove the miniPCI network card.”

Woah! WTF did Lenovo do? According to the linked article, it’s a controlling money-grab of some kind. Quite contrary to the reputation of Thinkpads, Lenovo pulled some bullshit that blocks owners from doing what should be a trivial upgrade on their own hardware.

No, I am not interested in flashing the BIOS with something 3rd-party. And IIUC, Coreboot requires special EEPROM hardware to flash. So I’m nixing the wi-fi upgrade option. I re-installed the original Wi-Fi NIC. I just want the existing original wi-fi card to be seen. Why might it be invisible? Would the intel Management Engine sabotage wi-fi, perhaps with some shitty config pushed by a past corporate owner? I don’t have the IME password but I might try unplugging the CMOS CR2032 battery to clear the IME settings.