Curious.

I have an ITM trade on $CMPS that expires in 01/2027.

However, they're not LEAPs as it is a ~10 month play.

Based on my math, the combined taxes on my profits (both federal and state, in CA) seem like it's going to be ~50%, which is nuts.

Is there anything I can do to minimize the tax rate?

Also, instead of cashing out this year, I'm thinking about cashing out close to expiration in 01/2027, then rolling the profits into a different play with LEAPs this time - wondering if that's a good move?

Thanks!

I've been banging my head against this for hours and I'm completely stuck. Looking for anyone who's gotten an AX210 working at proper speeds in an X230.

What I'm working with

• ThinkPad X230 (i5-3320M, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD)
• Intel AX210 (M.2 NGFF) installed via one of those generic M.2-to-mini-PCIe adapters you see on Amazon/AliExpress
• Linux Mint, kernel 6.17.0-14-generic
• Lenovo BIOS 2.77 with 1vyrain applied — whitelist is gone (confirmed: no 1802 errors, card fully recognized in dmesg)
• iwlwifi driver, firmware version 89
• Router is tri-band (2.4/5/6 GHz), all bands under one SSID
• Both X230 internal antenna cables connected—gray on MAIN, black on AUX

This is the kit I bought containing the AX210 card as well as the mini-PCIe TO M.2 adapter.

This is how I installed it... As you can see, it's awkward since it sits above the SSD. Moreover, even though this picture shows the gray wire connected to the mini-PCIe adapter terminal closest to the screen and the black wire connected to the terminal furthest away from the screen — I SWITCHED these wires thinking I had it wrong, and honestly I don't know which is correct as both configurations gives me terrible speeds 🤷🏽‍♂️

What's happening

The card connects fine but speeds are garbage. Here's what iw dev wlp3s0 link shows when connected to 5GHz:

freq: 5560.0
signal: -91 dBm
rx bitrate: 4.3 MBit/s HE-MCS 0 HE-NSS 1 HE-GI 0 HE-DCM 1
tx bitrate: 34.4 MBit/s 40MHz HE-MCS 1 HE-NSS 1 HE-GI 0 HE-DCM 0

And iw dev wlp3s0 info shows:

channel 112 (5560 MHz), width: 160 MHz, center1: 5570 MHz

inxi -Nxxx reports the card as 2x2, but it's only using one spatial stream (NSS 1). Signal is absurdly weak at -85 to -91 dBm even when I'm not far from the router. I'm seeing 92 Tx excessive retries at times. Real-world speeds range from 3-70 Mbps depending on which band it decides to connect to.

It also constantly falls back to 2.4GHz even when I set 5GHz band preference in NetworkManager. And when I try to force a specific 5GHz BSSID with nmcli device wifi connect, it says "No network with SSID found" — while I'm literally connected to that same SSID on 2.4GHz. Infuriating.

Everything I've tried (nothing fixed the speed)

Driver/firmware stuff:

• Updated linux-firmware package (has versions 59 through 89)
• Manually copied latest .ucode files from the linux-firmware git repo
• Various /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf combos:
  • power_save=0 bt_coex_active=0 11n_disable=8 → broke WiFi detection entirely
  • disable_11ax=Y power_save=0 + power_scheme=1 → no improvement
  • power_save=0 + power_scheme=1 → no improvement

NetworkManager tweaks:

• Set wifi.powersave = 2 in NetworkManager config
• Tried forcing band A (5GHz) via nmcli connection modify — ignored
• Tried sudo iw dev wlp3s0 set power_save off — no change

Nuclear options:

• Installed IWD to replace wpa_supplicant → completely nuked my WiFi. Had to purge IWD and re-enable wpa_supplicant to recover. Don't recommend.

BIOS stuff:

• 1vyrain confirmed working (got the 0183 Bad CRC error on first boot, no whitelist errors in dmesg)
• Secure Boot disabled, UEFI mode on

What I haven't tried yet

• Replacing the M.2 adapter with a native mini-PCIe AX210 card (like the EDUP MPE-AXE3000H) but don't want to do this unless I absolutely need to as I already spent money on this
• Swapping out the X230's internal antennas for dual-band ones (sounds complicated)
• Flashing actual coreboot (currently just using 1vyrain because I bricked my laptop trying to do a hardware flash and had to get a micro-soldering shop to fix broken resistors)
• Testing the card in a different laptop to isolate whether it's the adapter or antennas (don't have another laptop)

What I really would like to know

1. Has anyone gotten an AX210 via M.2 adapter working at 200+ Mbps in an X230? Or do you need a native mini-PCIe card like the MPE-AXE3000H?
2. Why is the card stuck on one spatial stream (NSS 1) when it reports as 2x2? Is this a classic symptom of these cheap adapters only routing one antenna internally?
3. Why is my signal so weak (-85 to -91 dBm) with both antennas connected? Are the X230's original 2012 antennas just not cut out for 5GHz/6GHz?
4. Is there a known-good iwlwifi.conf that works for AX210 on older ThinkPads?

Happy to run any diagnostic commands if that helps. Thanks in advance.