Newbie with a NEC MP 780

Hello, all!

I've recently inherited a NEC MobilePro 780 and the thing works great. I have all kinds of software and can use the thing all around. I have one problem, though...

The guy I got this from had hard reset the machine before he gave it to me, and while I could get the rest of the software running, I can't get the wireless LAN card to connect or even scan for wireless networks. He swears to me that his IT guy had the thing working for him with the same card, and I probably just need the correct drivers for it. I can't find the card listed on this site's extensive list, though.

The card is a PCMCIA card with no company name written on it. From top to bottom the sticker reads 802.11b Wireless LAN, AP/Router Solution. It also appears to say "SoftGate" very faintly on the front sticker. The driver disks that came with the thing say "2Wire," but the drivers given are for the Orinoco/Agere/Avaya network clients and installing any of them won't work. I've even tried DLing and installing drivers for a 2Wire card as well as other drivers that use the Orinoco/
Agere network clients.

When installed as an Orinoco card, I can give the driver name (when prompted) as wlluc46.dll and that appears to start the card, but the one green light on it just burns steady and won't scan for wireless networks. This is the closest I've seen to the thing working at all, so maybe I'm just putting in the wrong driver name. I'm completely thrown at the "Unknown PCCard" prompt, and most drivers for winCE don't specify their actual .dll name to make the thing work!

Anyways, any help would be appreciated.

Mark

Have you tried the generic Agere driver here?

http://www.hpcfactor.com/support/cesd/h/0031.asp

The driver name for the above version is wlags46.dll - but it may not even ask for the driver name. (At least it never has with my branded Agere ORiNOCO card.)

Well, I tried the generic Agere drivers, and typed wlags46.dll at the prompt, and this seemed at first glance to work. The green light on the card blinked pretty much like my usb wireless LAN antenna does on my laptop.

But it still won't scan for networks, or even let me assign it a static IP (neither DHCP nor static IPs work).

It sure gave me hope after seeing that green light blinking, though

try PRISM drivers

Tried and failed with "prismnds" as the driver name. All that did was turn my MobilePro into a slow-motion machine that said it didn't have a card inserted when it did.

I was hoping to get it working to contribute to the HCL, but apparently it's not meant to be. If anybody else has ever seen a "SoftGate" card, I can't find any reference to it here or on the 'net.

Anyways, thanks for trying .

Mark

Edited by wntrmute 2008-07-26 7:24 PM

It still sounds to me like you're working with an Agere card here. Are you saying that the Scan button doesn't work inside the Agere Client applet? Also, is there a firmware version number visible on the card anywhere?

Edited by CE Geek 2008-07-26 7:32 PM

That's what I'm saying. The machine won't scan for open networks or get on the network when I assign it an IP address (and subnet/gateway/dns servers). I thought the Agere drivers would work, too, but they appear to give me all the function without actually doing it.

Even in the client application, the "scan" button is grayed out and unusable. I'm thinking about buying a card that I know has good, easy to find drivers for the WinCE of the MobilePro 780, probably off of eBay. Any suggestions (price isn't as much of an issue as getting one that will work)?

Mark

Well, there's good news on that front: there are lots of good 802.11b cards that will work fine and can be found cheap on eBay. (You should have no trouble finding a Lucent or Agere ORiNOCO for about $10 plus shipping.)

Found a ORiNOCO Gold for $15 plus shipping...it should get here tomorrow and I can update :-).

Thanks again for the help...guess I'll update the HCL with the SoftGate card as a no-go.

We should probably do some more research into the SoftGate card before coming to conclusions. First thing is to verify which chipset it has. (As I said above, it sounds like an Agere-based card, but I haven't been able to find any info on the card online thus far.) I'm wondering if there was a hardware ID number visible anywhere on the SoftGate card. Do you see any numbers on the stickers on it?

Edited by CE Geek 2008-07-31 9:40 PM

Well, I'm posting this from my MP tonight, sitting on my back deck with half a bottle of scotch and my pipe lit, so I'm happy enough with my new ORiNOCO Gold card that arrived today.

As to the SoftGate card, I can't find any hardware numbers on the thing, as the only sticker it has is the one with the SoftGate name on it faintly, with no other identifying marks. It has no sticker or printed materials on the back of the thing. The only method I even have to tell that it worked at one time is the word of the man who gave it to me, and he's not exactly computer savvy (much less H/PC savvy ). I've done a lot of research on this card including looking up similar cards on Google and other forums, and just haven't had any luck with the thing. I'm leaning towards putting it on the HCL as a SoftGate card with no drivers available and not compatible with CE Pro.

perhaps it was working with the older agere drivers, those are not commonly used now, but some cards might need it.

Not really sure...I tried it with (what I think) are the old Agere drivers first, the ones on the CD that came with the thing. It's not an official CD, just one burned in the office. But the new drivers never worked for it, either. I'm 99% sure that the drivers are different from each other, too.

Were you thinking of the Lucent WaveLAN driver, cmonex? (driver name for that one: wvlan46.dll)