Fujitsu Pencentra 200 WiFi Problems

Hi everyone!

I have a pencentra 200 (actually, I have 20+ of them...) and I have a few (probably dumb newb) questions.


I am trying to get my WiFi working.
I am using an Orinoco/Lucent Silver 802.11b card. I downloaded the "proxim" driver from this website.

At work when I use my laptop's wifi, when I connect to the unsecured AP a network logon prompt pops up. With the pencentra, It doesn't pop up. Because I can't login to the network, all I can get to is our locally hosted website.

At home, I have my wifi secured with a 10 character HEX key. When I open the networking dialog and click OK, after a while a dialog box pops up to tell me that it can't obtain an IP address.

Any Ideas?



Also, It was annoying to remove Ubuntu from my other laptop to reinstall Win98 and use the old version of activesync. I don't really care about 'syncing' my contacts, etc anyway. Is there a better way to install non-cab programs?


These Pencentra200's have some softkeys along the left side of the screen for screen brightness, volume, and a few other things. There are 3 "programmable" softkeys too. Does anyone know HOW to program them?


I think that is it for now. Those are my three most pressing issues, but I have plenty more questions that reading the other couple related threads didn't solve.

Regards,
Clay

if your orinoco is not the proxim version but true orinoco, then proxim is the wrong driver, get agere.

Mine does not say "Proxim" anywhere on it. From reading and searching for drivers, I always saw them together, so I assumed they were just co-branding.

I will look for the agere driver.
Thanks!

Ok. Tried the Agere 2.11 driver. When installing on the desktop, it pops up and says "device not supported"
Same with the 3.0 version. Worth a try.

The setup.exe from http://www.hpcfactor.com/support/cesd/h/0031.asp Installesd on the PC, but not on the Pencentra.
It FGot stuck at "installing. Progress:" and it never moved, the cancel button didn't work. Soft reset.

The .CAB from the "inflated" folder of the agere driver file (once tediously transferred via Serial) Says "Setup failed. The application cannot run on this device type."

These devices have 129MHz Toshiba TX3922 MIPS RISC processors. The R39xx doesn't work though.

Any ideas?

I don't mind buying a different card if someone can guaratee me it will work...

Thanks

That's been an ongoing problem with the Agere drivers on the PenCentra. Several of us here (including myself) have been unable to install the Agere driver successfully on this device. (We've been getting the same results as you.) One user tried manually copying the driver DLLs over to the device one by one. (That hasn't worked for me.) The driver hosted on this site, BTW, is the true Agere driver; Proxim hosts its own version that only seems to work on its own version of this card (which is inferior to the earlier Agere and Lucent versions). As much as I love my Agere ORiNOCO card, I've had to settle for Prism-based cards on the PenCentra.

Do you mean something like this?
[url]http://cgi.ebay.com/SENAO-LONG-RANGE-PCMCIA-WIFI-CARD-2511CD-PLUS-PRISM-2-5_W0QQitemZ370036592586QQihZ024QQcategoryZ45000QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItem?_trksid=p1638.m122 (Ebay)

I don't mind buying one if I KNOW it will work. I have about 20 of these pencentras, If I can get wifi working, I could maybe sell more of them. (Not to mention get mine working!)

I understand you have one of these too? Have you figured out how to replace the backup battery? Mine is worn out, only holds about a days worth of charge.

Thanks a lot, both of you!

It seem to be that I am the only one who has ever got their Pencentra 200 working on wifi.

Are you running HPC PRO or HPC 2000?

Mine is the Gold card and used the drivers on here. I have gotten both of mine working on wifi. HPC 2000 is faster.

Mine are in storage so I will dig out them today and see if I can get them running again and with wifi.

S/F<
CEYA!

Edited by Ceya 2008-03-29 11:51 AM

HPC Pro, I think. That's what the wallpaper says, anyway.
About window says:
MS Windows CE Handheld PC Edition version 3.01
Core System Version 2.11

If 2000 is better, do you know any good place to get the upgrade?

ooh ce geek, i didn't know you had a prism card

prism wins after all.

Hi, All:

I have a PenCentra 200, upgraded to HPC2000. I am currrently looking at the HPC factor site with it, on a Lucent Orinoco Gold card, with the WLUC461 drivers; I have also successfully used a Linksys WPC11 v.3, and installed the Linksys configuration utility, which runs fine. Also have installed the CISCO drivers for my old trusty Aironet 540 card, and it works. In fact, it is the only one I could get working on my other PenCentra, a 130 with HPC Pro on it......also have a Proxim driver in the 200 as well.
As for programming the hot keys on the left side, go to the control panel and hit the "application launcher", it will allow you to program the hot keys. I think the PenCentra manual is still available on the Fujitsu website (I have a copy I got from there, but it was a few months ago).
Leave the charger on the PenCentra for about 24 hours and see if your low backup battery doesn't clear itself. IIRC, there isn't a convenient way to change it out, and I don't think you need to; just takes a long time to charge.

Hi Al!

I assumed that was where the hotkeys could be changed, but when I changed them there, nothing happened.
i.e. button 3 still brought up the d@mn calibration screen. Guess I will try it again.

Welcome to HPCF, btw!

Sez you. You know I have several Prism cards - I've mentioned each of them at one point or another in these forums. Trouble is, I get inconsistent results with all of them.

Nope. The application launcher still doesn't work. MAybe it only works in H/PC 2000?

Anyway, I haven't had much luck trying to find an H/PC 2000 upgrade ROM. Does anyone here think it would be possible to copy one and make my own? Note that I've never tried anything like that, but it sounds like fun.

Alternatively, I might spend the next few millenia trying to make a linux port. and failing. heh.

not me... you just need to know which PRISM driver build is the right one for each platform. seems there is always only one.. then you'll be just fine.

but the same thing with agere really, in my experience.

Well, that hasn't been my experience with my Agere-based cards. They just work nicely with all my CE devices - except my PenCentra.