Jornada 690: Manually installing Wi-Fi drivers via CompactFlash?

So, I've got myself a Jornada 690 and a Cisco Aironet 350 PCMCIA wi-fi card - would anyone know how I can get the drivers for the card onto the device without use of ActiveSync? the auction I got the 690 from got me the device itself, the dock, a stylus and a power cord... but no sync cable.

I'm thinking I might be able to extract the drivers from the installer and just paste them into place by hand over compactflash, but I'm not really sure where to copy to in particular. Anyone have any pointers? thanks!

You can...it is pretty easy. Just find the proper cab file for the SH3 processor and copy it to the CF card...stick it in your J690 and tap on it to install.

Yup - thanks for the pointer!

This is one of those deals where it has an EXE installer meant to be ran on a host machine that the H/PC is connected to, though... 7ZIP is capable of extracting the contents of the installer, but I don't seem to get any files I can work with.

Then there's no way to get the CABs without running the installer on the PC, though you can do this without the device connected.

I just thought of something - what if I connected my CE 2000-based PDA? would it be checking for the 690 specifically, or would any device recognized by ActiveSync do?

Edited by Mister_Argent 2015-01-21 5:39 AM

just run the .EXE file in your desktop computer, it will eventually unzipped the files into a folder under ActiveSync folder. You do not need to connect the HPC to the Desktop. Look for the appropraite cab or img file in the ActiveSync folder and transfer it to your HPC using a CF card, then you can run it from there.

Note:, although the 7zip wont show any cab or img files unside the compressed file, running the .EXE installer will uncompress and create the needed files. Just try to find your ActiveSync folder, they are bound to be there.
I personally dont use Activesync to install programs, and I always get the cab files this way.

The CAB files will usually appear in a folder in C:\Program Files\Microsoft ActiveSync, though occasionally they instead end up in C:\Program Files. See here for details:

http://www.hpcfactor.com/support/cesd/s/0049.asp

Look, make it easy for yourself. Go to the "Support and Tutorials" section of this website, and then look at the options across the top of the screen and find the "hardware compatibility" area. Agree to the "Disclaimer" and then select "networking/wireless network cards" from the drop box.

When you get the networks cards up, select Cisco 350. Go to the CE2.11 (edited) area and select version 2.22. That is an inflated file that contains the SH3 cab files for installation. Copy the SH3 version to your CF card and stick it in your handheld. That should be all you need to do.

That is, install it, warm reboot, stick in your Cisco card and see what happens.

Thank you! Got the CAB file to the device. Sorry I'm making this so hard - I admittedly don't have too much hands-on time with these things...

now running into some bizarre issues, though - the installer warns me that it may not run correctly on my OS version (in spite of apparently being made with H/PC pro in mind) and seems to copy the files over properly, but when I attempt to run the executables it installed (whether via the start menu or by navigating to the /windows/programs/cisco directory it wanted to install to and trying to launch them directly) CE complains that it can't find the program ran or one of it's components. It likewise still is unable to identify the PC card..

Multiple driver revisions seem to do this.

Edited by Mister_Argent 2015-01-21 5:32 PM

Oops...my bad. You should have went to the CE2.11 area. I forgot the 690 is HPCPro and not HPC2000. Get the inflated for CE2.11 v2.22 The driver was really written pocketpc, not hpc...but it will run under HPCPro I believe. Or I could be wrong...

It seems that many of the Cisco drivers out there for the 350 don't include SH3 builds for HPC...I wonder why.

I wonder if the Cisco 340 drivers will work with the 350.

Guess I should buy a J680/690 to experiment with....

If someone has a working driver set for the SH3 CE2.11, we could recompile it into a new cab for future download...

They never released the chipset reference driver with it for the 350. Sadly it won't work with the 340, 341 or 342 driver. It needs the 350 driver it is is a completely different chipset.

Don't forget to flash the firmware when using the Aironet's otherwise you might get a false negative on the driver.

2.11 drivers 2.00, 2.20 and 2.22 all seem to not work properly. Same issue - none of the programs want to run. Would the firmware be included on the bundle, or am I gonna need to snag that from elsewhere?

Edited by Mister_Argent 2015-01-22 6:57 PM

You know Mister Argent, there is something else to consider...and that is the wifi hotspot you are going to connect with. If it is an open one, or a 64bit WEP protocol, then you are probably okay. But, if the security is WPA, WPA-PSK, etc...then you are not going to connect since these old cards and operating systems do not work with the higher security networks.

I think you may consider just getting a different wifi card that has had more success with the Jornada 690.

Right... I was looking at something that was supposed to play a bit nicer with the 690, but I got sniped at the last second on eBay. Is there a heavily recommended card I should keep an eye out for, or am I better off skimming compatibility lists and deciding which'll work best for myself? Thanks for the help so far, by the way!