Orinoco Silver driver install problem

Hi I am new here but please forgive me that I have done a lot of reading searching and checking before asking.

I have just bought myself a couple of Compaq handhelds off ebay - they represent the pda I wanted 7 years ago - and at about 10 ukp each (with postage) I felt I could hardly go wrong.

One is a Compaq 810c 8MB RAM - colour screen dead battery but otherwise fine. I am just in the process of rebuilding its battery - with new 2700mah AF cells so it should be perfect after that.

The other is a totally dead 2010c - which I had hoped to use the mainboard from to get the 810c upto 16MB of RAM - however having taven it to pieces it looks fairly well stuffed by a carelessly attempted repair. Still the battery is just about usable in the 810c and I have probably got a spare screen and a few other bits etc.

I have done all the reading up I could manage, and also have bought a Lucent Orinoco Wavelan (Silver) card. This seems to be the best card to get working on CE 2.0 so I had reasonable hopes of getting wireless networking working (if only on a 75MHz PDA).

The problem is even after doing everything the pocketpcfaq's advise and reading every relevant post here I can find I still can't get the drivers working properly.

The steps I hgave taken are.

1. Hard Reset 810c
2. Install correct Compaq CE2.0 SP1 (for MIPS HPCs)
3. Install CE 2.0 Network Service Pack (NSP)
4. Install the correct Lucent CE 2.0 drivers (setup200 from the CE2.x package)

Indeed everything seems to work fine until I install the Silver card the first time where it prompts me "Unidentified PCCard Adapter" - "Enter Name of Driver for this PCCard". I do the correct thing I think of entering "wvlan46" (although I also have tried "wvlan46.dll", "wvlan" and just about every other possible combination.

Unfortunately I think it is failing at this point as the little green light on the card stops flashing - and although I can configure the WaveLAN settings in control panel and see the Network settings I get nowhere.

ALso Every time I unplug and replug the card it asks again to "Enter Name of Driver for this PCCard" - which seems to indicate it is not linking the card to the drivers.

Any idea what I am doing wrong.

PS Great forum - I certainly wouldn't have go this far without you and pocketpcfaq !

Hello and welcome to HPC:Factor. You should consider registering...

On topic: HPC:Factor has drivers at this link. Congratulations on the 810c and (I guess the 2010c as well ). I also have Compaq 2010c...

hehe the compaq c series is really nice
i just got that 2000c from my friend who had the problem with the password hehe... same as 2010c, without a modem. really like the screen, dont mind it is 256 colours etc!
i will try my wlan card in it, and if i manage to do that, i'll let you know... it isn't orinoco but works on other CE 2.0 units, for example my ericsson mc16.
i have no idea what's wrong other than that the driver name may not be correct. check the file names in the cab installer.
also if you can give me a hint about rebuilding the battery i would be happy with the information.

Edited by cmonex 2005-12-03 7:44 AM

You know I never use the built-in modem... In fact, it would be even more useful if it was ethernet instead... However, that technology was vastly new in 1998 and most people were still using modems, so...

Sorry for delay in responding - I was away for the last few days.

Still very stuck with my Orinoco card driver problem - I have checked the .CABs and the windows folder on the 810c. The driver DLL definitely is called "wvlan46.DLL" and it is sitting there on the machine.

Any other suggestions greatfully recieved.

As for the rebuild of the battery pack I will take some photos over the weekend and make sure I post links.

PS I am registered now - Only my second post. Suspect it might not be my last as I am now hankering after a j720

James

thanks for the photos and instructions in advance...

no idea about the orinoco, you may try another orinoco driver, there are several, not sure if they're all available for ce 2.0 though
and you may try entering a new entry for it in pcmcia/drivers/active if it doesn't appear there..

hehe that friend of mine i got the 2000c from, has just upgraded to a j720... (that's why i got the 2000c from him!)
so, good idea...

For 2.0, the Lucent WaveLAN driver should work fine. (At least it does on my Phenom.)

I use Wlluc46 in my SIlver clones, does a driver exist for 2.0?

well the phenom is SH3..
and i'm starting to suspect a problem with certain ce 2.0 mips wlan drivers, and a with a few of the 2.11 drivers. but i can't confirm it yet... if someone with a ce 2.x (preferably 2.0!!) mips hpc is reading this, who could successfully use wlan on his (her ) device, please let me know, and also, with which driver, exact cab name if possible, or at least the exact driver, etc.
my 2000c would still probably act up with that wlan card, but i just got this beautiful NEC 750C... so i can experiment on ce 2.0 mips again! (the sharp 4100 runs on AA batteries and has no ac adapter so i'm not sure about that one.)

edit: oops, no, i forgot about my router... still i may be able to test within the home network...

Edited by cmonex 2005-12-07 7:39 AM

ok, i didn1t try to fix the router yet, it is still working in switch mode now.. but looks like the 750C works fine with the driver. it could even go into the router page in the pocket IE2 browser.. hehehe. (but login to the page wasn't entirely successful... old thing ) so the only thing i couldn't test yet is dns...

so the problem with the sharp 4100 was that the AA batts can't bear the extra voltage..

so.. are you using your compaq on AC while trying the wifi? (that thing has AA batts basically in that proprietary pack, doesnt it.. the 750C has a real li-ion battery )

I thought you lost the 750c, cmonex..
I am looking at getting grayscale H/PCs powered by AA batteries now .

no, that was the 700. same as 750C but BW screen. (don't bid on one please)
the 750C has a very nice 256 colour screen and even the battery is quite good so i could test the wlan easily!

back to topic... so the battery could be an issue... or if it is not that, did you install the sp1 then reset and then install the nsp and then reset again and only then install the wlan driver? this may be important.. and of course a reset may be required after installing the wlan driver.

Edited by cmonex 2005-12-07 1:53 PM

The one I have (LG Phenom H-120F) is pretty cool. (Got it for $32 on eBay back in May.) But the Mobilon 4100 looks pretty cool too.

Edited by CE Geek 2005-12-07 11:22 PM

yeah the 4100 is nice.. the keyboard.. the case is looking too cheap though.

Battery is indeed a just a couple of 1.2V NiMH cells (AF rather than AA) - so running on batteries may be impossible - although I guess there are 2.5V -> 3.3V + 5V dc to dc converters in there somewhere. However all my testing has been done plugged in to the 5V external PSU - so it is probably not the issue.

I have also just tried almost all combinations of reboot / reset at each stage in the install process and still no joy. Also looking in the registry I have got the correct lucent wavelan pcmcia\drivers referenced

Just to confirm cmonex, have you got a Orinoco wlan card working in a MIPS CPU (Mobile Pro?) 750?

The only other thought I have is it could be the firmware on my silver card is too new to work with the CE 2.0 drivers. My Silver card has been flashed to 8.72 which I think makes it a Gold equivalent. Could this be the issue. Any idea what firmware version your card is at?

Another problem is I can't easily do a firmware downgrade as I need a non-XP laptop and old drivers which recognise and work with my 8.72 card. My attempts to flash it back to 6.xx firmware have so far failed.

And thanks again for all the help. At least I am enjoying the challenge !