Trouble with Linksys instant wireless network card

Just wondering if there has been any new development to this ongoing problem.

There are many users here that have the same problem, if anyone has anymore information it would be a big help to a lot of us.


Thanks.
Todd.

I have ordered up a ORiNOCO Classic Gold PC Card (8410-WD). installed the util on my jornada very smoothly, so i thought i would give the card a try.


Will post my findings. Card should be here early next week.



Cheers,
Todd.

The Orinoco card works great with my Jornada 690

installed the app, pluged it in, and instantly connected.


it has a built in profile manager if you use more then one wireless connection (great for setting up different hotspots you visit) and a wireless monitor that lets you knwo what wireless connections are around.


connected to my dlink router at work in seconds, wep and no wep, as well as my linksys router at home.


Cost was $50~ (CAD)


well worth it.

thought i would share my findings.


Todd.

I was able to get the WPC11 v3 working with my 680e. After trying the Linksys drivers and having no luck, I installed the Compaq drivers for the WL100. I then uninstalled the Linksys drivers and when I popped the card in, it asked for the driver name. I entered WL100NDS.DLL and it came up with the Compaq WL100 Monitor program which allowed me to enter a WEP key and it connected with no problem. The only thing I have seen is that it takes a little while (a few minutes) after it gets an IP from the DHCP server before DNS lookups start working.

I didn't use the driver hosted here, instead I found one meant for WinCE 2.11 on http://www.cewindows.net/faqs/wl100driver.htm. I used SP15585.

Edited by mysticode 2005-03-11 10:58 AM

Add another user to the list:

I've got an NEC MobilePro 880, with a Linksys WCF12 802.11b CF card I'm
borrowing. After doing some research on the net, I
found other Windows CE 2.11 users who'd used the WCF12 with the WCF11
drivers.

Giving it a try on my home network (with a Linksys WRV54G wireless router), everything looks like it's connecting
properly: it associates with my access point, is on the right channel, has
good signal strength and link quality, is receiving well (between 700 and
1100 Mbit/sec). However, it can't seem to pull down an IP address over
DHCP. Nor, for that matter, will it connect out with a static IP address -
it won't even let me ping the gateway.

So far, I've tried:

1. Blowing out those drivers, and installing the WCF12 ones, which didn't help - now the Config Utility won't even load.

2. Blowing out all the Linksys drivers, and installing the Compaq WL100 ones - I'd had a great deal of success with this on my old IBM z50 (before both it and my own WCF12 died), but can't get the Compaq config utility to recognize the WCF12 as even being in the machine.

3. Uninstalling all the WiFi-related drivers all over again, making sure HPC Pro SP1 is installed (it was), and reinstalling the bloody WCF11 drivers again. Still no go - it's unable to get an address via DHCP, and setting up a static IP doesn't help either.

I'd try it in a different PC, but I've never seen non-CE drivers for the WCF11/12, and the only other working devices with a CF or PC card slots I've got are either full laptops, or an HP 360LX.

Note that it's not networking in general that's a problem (my Hawking 10/100
CF card works fine), just when I'm trying to use the WCF12. Anyone have any
ideas what's going on, or something else I can try?

I had a j690. It worked great with all prism cards I own (Belkin, Ma401, Dcf-660) and all the various drivers mixed and matched just fine.

However, there were some gotchas. DHCP was unreliable with any card or any driver. I t sometimes took 2 minutes to lease an address, if at all. If I did lease an address, accessing my network could take 2 minutes to establish a connection, each connection, even connections 5 minutes apart. I don't know if ce2.11 or the jornada network components were to blame.

Solution: Hard code the IP, netmask, DNS server and the gateway. Leave nothing to chance.

When switching drivers make sure all the remnants of the old driver set are removed. Start by removing the card from the slot and using the control panel remove programs.

Then start editing the registry HKLM\drivers\pcmcia . There will be an entry with the exact name of your card, regardless of the drivers you've been trying, the proper exact card name will be there. Delete this key. Delete the keys with the exact name of other wifi cards you've tried/tested.

I recommend you install prism reference drivers. When the drivers are installed it's time to pop in the wifi card. Regardless of the make (Belkin, Linksys, Netgear, Dlink) or form factor (pcmcia or cf or cf->pcmcia adapter) of your prism based card, enter prismnds.dll when prompted for the driver.

Now hard code the ip, netmask, dns and gateway. I don't know why two instances of some cards appear in network properties, but hard code each instanceof your wifi card with the above. Afterwards you can determine from your router which instance of the card is unused and you can revert that instance back to dhcp.

I can't make it any clearer. Every prism based card has worked 1st shot with any prism based drivers I've chosen by following my own advice.

I had a j690. It worked great with all prism cards I own (Belkin, Ma401, Dcf-660) and all the various drivers mixed and matched just fine.

However, there were some gotchas. DHCP was unreliable with any card or any driver. I t sometimes took 2 minutes to lease an address, if at all. If I did lease an address, accessing my network could take 2 minutes to establish a connection, each connection, even connections 5 minutes apart. I don't know if ce2.11 or the jornada network components were to blame.

Solution: Hard code the IP, netmask, DNS server and the gateway. Leave nothing to chance.

When switching drivers make sure all the remnants of the old driver set are removed. Start by removing the card from the slot and using the control panel remove programs.

Then start editing the registry HKLM\drivers\pcmcia . There will be an entry with the exact name of your card, regardless of the drivers you've been trying, the proper exact card name will be there. Delete this key. Delete the keys with the exact name of other wifi cards you've tried/tested.

I recommend you install prism reference drivers. When the drivers are installed it's time to pop in the wifi card. Regardless of the make (Belkin, Linksys, Netgear, Dlink) or form factor (pcmcia or cf or cf->pcmcia adapter) of your prism based card, enter prismnds.dll when prompted for the driver.

Now hard code the ip, netmask, dns and gateway. I don't know why two instances of some cards appear in network properties, but hard code each instanceof your wifi card with the above. Afterwards you can determine from your router which instance of the card is unused and you can revert that instance back to dhcp.

I can't make it any clearer. Every prism based card has worked 1st shot with any prism based drivers I've chosen by following my own advice.

don't worry, use wally's excellent advice.
btw you can use the card in your 360LX. use the hawking CE 2.0 driver (i don't recommend the belkin version). it should instantaneously connect and get an ip via DHCP (my experience, i have a 360LX clone, Ericsson MC16). that's one of the things i like about CE 2.0, it connects to the network so much faster than hpc2000. hpc2000 takes about 10-20 secs, sometimes a little more. with the same card and driver (hawking CE 2.0 and hpc2000 versions). oh and make sure you're connected to AC while using the wlan card in your 360LX.
on the PC if it's XP it should recognize it easily as it's a standard prism card...

Ouch. And I thought Windows 98 SE was bad.



Wow. Not only was that key being left in there, but so was HKLM\software\linksys\wcf11 and also HKLM\software\apps\*** where *** represents every single WiFi driver I ever tried on here - no wonder it was getting so confused!

I also, while I was at it, deleted some extraneous stuff under HKLM\comm - often, even after uninstalling a WiFi driver/app, the device would still show up under Network Configuration in the Control Panel. The extra devices are "stored" under this section of the registry.



Found two versions of the ver. 2.5 drivers here on HPCFactor, and wasn't sure from the description which was the correct one. I ended up going with 1.7.37, which installed fine. Configured my WiFi settings, and the network settings when prompted.



Yeah, that is weird, isn't it? Mine shows "Intersil PRISM 11Mbps Wireless LAN PC Card" and also "Intersil PRISM Wireless LAN PC Card" - I configured one for one IP address, and the other at a different IP address as a test. According to my IP address utility, it's using the Intersil PRISM Wireless one (not the "11Mbps" one). I've got a green light on the status icon....and I'm on the net!

Thanks a bunch for the help - this is going to be big help when I head to the office tomorrow, where wired LAN is a pain in the neck for me to access - we're so cramped for space they moved me out of my cubicle, told me to manage the network from home, etc., so I have to connect to my WiFi there and work from wherever I can. I'd much rather haul around a MP 880 than my heavier laptop when I'm doing that.