Today I upgraded the internal Wi-Fi card on Blackbox (my Lenovo M710q Tiny running Debian) to an Intel AX200NGW.
The journey wasn’t exactly plug-and-play — but we got there, and now Blackbox is fully dual-network capable. Here’s the full rundown, problems included.

Hardware install

The M710q had an old (broken) Wi-Fi card still installed, connected to:

• An internal antenna module (flat black rectangle inside the case)
• An external antenna that screws onto the back panel

Steps taken:

• Opened the case.
• Removed the old card (tiny Phillips #0 screwdriver needed).
• Slotted in the AX200NGW into the M.2 E-key slot.
• Connected:
  • Pin 1 (Main) → internal antenna (black module)
  • Pin 2 (Aux) → external back panel antenna
• Screwed it down.

BIOS hiccup

On reboot, Debian didn’t detect the new card.
Problem: Wireless LAN was disabled in BIOS (probably because the previous card was faulty).

✅ Solution:

• Rebooted, entered BIOS (F1).
• Re-enabled Wireless LAN support under Devices.

Initial detection check

Back in Debian, I checked if the card was now visible:

lspci | grep -i network

✅ This time, the Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 showed up correctly!

Missing firmware problem

However, the card wasn’t fully operational yet.
Problem:
Debian couldn’t load the firmware. The dmesg output showed lots of missing firmware errors:

sudo dmesg | grep iwlwifi

firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-cc-a0-72.ucode (-2)

✅ Solution:
Manually downloaded the required firmware.

Commands run:

cd /tmp
wget https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/plain/iwlwifi-cc-a0-72.ucode
sudo cp iwlwifi-cc-a0-72.ucode /lib/firmware/
sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi
sudo modprobe iwlwifi

✅ After that, re-running:

sudo dmesg | grep iwlwifi

showed that firmware version 72.daa05125.0 was successfully loaded, and the AX200 was fully initialized.

Testing the Wi-Fi interface

To check available networks:

sudo iw dev wlp2s0 scan | grep SSID

or the nicer view:

nmcli device wifi list

✅ Blackbox could see multiple Wi-Fi networks around.

Connecting to Wi-Fi (headless friendly)

I used nmtui, a lightweight TUI (text-based UI), to connect:

nmtui

• Activate a connection
• Select my Wi-Fi
• Enter password
• Done.

✅ nmtui saves the Wi-Fi profile and auto-connects after reboot.

Ethernet priority

By default, Debian prioritizes wired Ethernet over Wi-Fi when both are available — no manual tweaks needed.

✅ Blackbox will use Ethernet when plugged in, and fall back to Wi-Fi if needed.

Conclusion

This upgrade took a little longer than expected — mainly due to:

• BIOS Wireless LAN being disabled
• Missing firmware on Debian

But now Blackbox has fast, stable Wi-Fi alongside wired Ethernet. And the card gives us Bluetooth 5.2!

Next job: Thermal paste refresh... when I find the energy.