Wireless Card Alvarion BreezeNet

Hi everybody!

It happened to get hold of an wireless pcmcia card made by Alvarion, model BreezeNet Pro.11 series, SA-PCR 802.11 and I intend to use it with my Jornada 728 or NEC MobilePor 900c (cmonex2). It appears to be a 16bit pcmcia card, that goes completely inside the HPC and has two nice retractable antennas.

The problem is that I can't find any drivers and documentation, I even don't know if it is compatible with WinCE, I've searched to no avail the Hardware Compatibility List on this forum, the Alvarion website and the ChrisDeHerrera's website, Yetanotherhomepage and Google of course.

The closest Alvarion model found compatible on this forum is BreezeNet DS.11b (802.11b), but even there it says "No drivers are available for this device". It is true that under General Notes it is written "Users report success with the Agere reference drivers for the Handheld PC."

The old links from this forum to the Alvarion site are not giving any result since Alvarion seems to deal now only with newer devices - under both BreezeNET DS.11 and BreezeNET PRO.11 complete different devices than pcmcia cards are shown.

So, please, can somebody help me with any info on this BreezeNet SA-PCR pcmcia cards or even on the BreezeNet DS.11b?

I inserted the card in both my J728 and Nec900c with cmonex v2 and I received in both cases the usual message asking for the driver name. What shall I fill-in there, any hint please?

What Agere reference drivers that might work shall I try and wherefrom to download them, any hint please?

Thank you, any info will be appreciated.

The DS.11b is a rebadged Orinoco Gold, so try to use the reference drivers in support. I can't find chipset info on the other one, so unless you get lucky with either Agere or Prism reference drivers (please report if you do) I'd say it's incompatible.

Thanks C:Amie! I installed the Agere reference driver on J728, but when inserting the SA-PCR card I'm still being asked about the driver name. So obviously the card is not recognized and it doesn't work, not even one blinking LED.

It's a shame, because the mechanical construction with complete insertion, flush with Jornada case, and the two retractable antennas are a beauty. But information is so scarce on these BreezeNet cards.

That's fairly normal, you have to provide the driver name to use a reference driver.

Try WLAGS46b.dll

Thanks C:Amie.

Typed-in WLAGS46b.dll and a few seconds later the Wireless Network Settings screen open-up. Unfortunately no LED activity at all. There is a new icon in the taskbar opening the Agere Client wifi monitoring window. There is a version info showing Wireless Driver Bld 881 ready and Wireless Card ID 0 Var 0 Ver 00.00 (probably the SA-PCR card is not recognized). The message in this monitoring window is Client: Ready, but the rest of the headers are empty (Network, Connection, BS, Channel, Encryption), meaning I guess hat the card is not recognized.

I've opened the Network Configuration window where there are 2 reference drivers shown:
- WLAGS461: Agere Wireless Network Driver (H1)
- WLAGS46b1:Wireless Network
and selected by turn each of them followed by suspend and even softreset, but nothing makes the card work.
Does it make sense to try the other name for the driver (WLAGS461)? This will imply uninstalling and reinstalling the Agere Wireless Network Driver software or even a hard reset in order to be queried again about the driver's name.

I guess that it is either not recognized or even dead. I will test it in my XP computer just to make sure it works, I wonder if it will be automatically recognzed. That's it for now, I'll get back to you. Thanks again.

Edited by arlex 2011-05-22 8:28 AM

I've checked this BreezeNET Wireless SA-PCR card on an old XP computer. It was immediately recognized and installed as "BreezeNET Wireless PC card", but the icon shown in the taskbar is for a LAN network and not for wireless. Probably I'm missing the wireless utility from BreezeNET (if any existing). The yellow LED was blinking continuously.
Definitely this BreezeNET Wireless card was not a good choice for me.

For a long shot you could try uninstalling the Agere ref's and throw on the Prism ones, jus ton the off chance.
I can't seem to find what chipset it uses so there is a tiny chance of success.

Otherwise lesson to be learned here on checking compatiblity first

I once liked the construction too: retractable antennas. Unfortunately, I could not make it work on J720 or MP900C. IIRC, Pro.11 was before full 11b release (DS.11b). I even contacted the original driver developer in Israel and was told "No go".

Edited by CAuser 2011-05-22 7:08 PM

Thanks again C:Amie for the whole support! I think I'll stop here, I'll return it tomorrow to the previous owner, he lives in my town. We've agreed on that from the beginning as he was not able to give me the exact model no., I asked specifically about the DS.11b (from the compatibility list). But judging by the way things look now, even the DS.11b would have been a "no go".

So afterall, not an inspired way for me to spend the week-end....:-)

Thank you CAuser, very precious information, it takes Pro.11 completely out of the way. I feel that even DS.11b would not have been a good choice.