Yet Another WiFi Problem - Belkin F5D6020 on J720

Got my Jornada 720 just last week; haven't touched a computer since (had to sell my laptop for a security deposit on my apartment)...except for one thing: internet access. Well, I got a Belkin F5D6020 card off of craigslist, called the guy *three* times to make sure it was version 1 - PRISM 2. It was, so I brought it home today to install. Found both the Intersil Prism drivers (courtesy of DriverGuide) and the WL100 drivers (via HP).

First I tried the HP drivers (well, it *is* an HP device, so what the heck...). Here's the difficulty: I don't have a sync cable for it (being a broke college student and all), so I've been installing everything by way of CompactFlash card. I unpacked the drivers into the ActiveSync folder, copied it to a CF card, and installed the drivers. The adapter flashed orange, but up popped an error:

"Application WL100STA.exe has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If the problem persists, contact the program vendor"

Well, that's that I thought. So I uninstalled the drivers and made sure to clear the registry of the keys from the install. Then I tried to install the Intersil drivers. Same result, except with the Intersil drivers, it flashed only once. Did a hard reset, and tried installing again.

I guess I have two questions:
(1) I currently have the WL100 drivers installed. The LED is flashing orange. Is the card actually working?
(2) If the card is not working, what should I do? If it is working, what can I use to configure it? (SSIDs, keys, etc.)

Thanks!

the CE3 WL100 drivers are pocketpc drivers, iirc. that's the problem. if you don't want wep, etc. it is no problem, the card itself will still work (only the config utility is not accessible.. for wep, ssid for closed ssid's etc...).
but as you need it (and it is understandable that you want security! ), i would recommend using the hawking CE3 driver, from the HCL on this site. this is compiled for hpc2000 and should work. i use it myself for a similar wlan card - not belkin but fully compatible.
oh and if i understand right, you did not download the intersil prism driver from the CESD here on this site, so probably you got the wrong version, ppc CE3. that explains it again.

This entire time I completely missed the thin green bars, thinking they were just dividers...which is why I didn't download the drivers from the HCL. But now I have a new problem.

I put the .cab on the HPC, ran it, and it installed without a hitch. Cackling with glee, I then plugged in the PC Card and ran the Wireless Configuration Utility, only to have it display:

Unable to connecto the Wireless Networkd Card, please insert it.



It was definitely inserted, but just to be sure, I removed it, put it back in, and tried to the run the program again. Same message. Did a soft reset, repeat. Same message. Paying attention to the card, I see that the LED flashes orange exactly one time *while* I'm pushing the card in. What would cause this?

lol i already told C:Amie the HCL needs a little change to avoid such problems

so.. uh-huh, which driver is this? intersil, if so which version? hawking? something else? it looks like it isn't compatible. but it should be... did it ask for a driver name on insertion?

have you uninstalled the WL100 driver and deleted the reg key for it?
can you check in the registry that the card and the driver have been linked? (i.e. there's a relevant entry for it)

I am currently using the Hawking drivers that you suggested earlier. And no, it didn't ask for a driver name. There's no sign that it even realized that a card was inserted, besides the LED flashing once.

I uninstalled the driver and reg key for the WL100. The funny thing is, I just checked the registry, and there's and entyr for "Belkin-11Mbps_Wireless_Notebook_Network_Adapter":

Miniport "PRISMNDS"
Prefix "NDS"
DLL "NDIS.DLL"

Should I delete this?

For the Hawking, I see "PCMCIA-11M-WLAN_ARD_V2.5-53CF":

Miniport "PRISMNDS"
Prefix "NDS"
DLL "NDIS.DLL"

yes, you should definitely delete the belkin key! maybe that's causing the problems. actually this is one possible explanation of the symptoms

This sounds a lot like the problem I was having with the F5D-6060 card with my MP790. But I'm still a village idiot, and tweaking registry entries is uncharted terrain for me. Where do I find the files?

HKLM/drivers/PCMCIA and you will see which are relevant entries

Okay, now I'm really feeling stupid. Where is HKLM? I don't see it anywhere in Windows Explorer on the MP790.

To see HKLM you'll need a registry editor, not windows explorer. and btw it's not shown as HKLM, but as HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

It works! It works it works it works!
Thanks a lot! It was really weird though; those keys didn't show up on any other install...

Oh, I've been using your copy of NetFront; it's a tad sluggish though...any suggestions as how I can speed it up?

ah very good news

netfront: if you mean it's launching slowly, run it from RAM. it will launch within 2-3 secs
if you mean its menus that can't be helped, they're faster on xscale / ce.net though.
IMO, the page loading is faster than in IE, if you don't mind that some of the pics are still being loaded. i don't mind and i just stop it when the page looks ok
js and java is amazing in netfront though...

Oh, I have been running it from RAM (tried it once from CF...uhh...yeah). I mean the page rendering, although I kinda figured out that it's because i go to mostly graphic-instensive pages