Strange ethernet lan card problem with Sharp HPC Pro

I have an NEC outdated 10m 16bit lan card called pc9801n. It is so old that there is even no official winme driver for it.

But i have successully installed it on win2k and used it to connect 2 adsl. all working fine. so the card assumed 2 be working and OK.

Other users have also reported that NEC HPC pros (at least Japanese models) have a built-in driver for this card and many hpc vendors sell this lan card with nec hpc pro. No driver needed on NEC hpcs, simply plug and play. So this card assumed 2 be compatible with WINCE, at least hpc pro.

the issue is that i never get it working ok on my sharp hc-aj1 (hpc pro) and intermec 6651. details:

plug the nec card in aj1. the hpc asks for a name. i enter ne2000 or somtimes ne2000.dll (i suppose the same effects). the hpc automatically displays the config page for ne2000-compatible lan card. I enter all the details, say Gateway, submask, dns and even wins. at this moment, can I say this card is compatible with wince?

both this configuration fails to work on my hpc. both of aj1 and even 6651 say xxx website unreachable. I have also tried both static and dynamic IP.

DNS not working? the hpc could not connect 2 the ip address of a few working web sites, either.

i have tried this in two network environments. the first one is a wireless router connected 2 adsl. i enter the ip of the router as my gateway (later confirmed with g138 successfully connects to this router. i have checked the ip info). it fails. the second is directly connect my hpc to an adsl modem. enter the adsl modem ip as the gateway. fails again.

I try book digital g138 with these two network configs. G138's built-in ethernet lan card automatically recognize my network configuration in both scenarios. Just turn on g138 and i can connect 2 internet in a few seconds, no need 2 do manual settings for gateway or even dns.


why my nec card fails? Is it not compatible with wince, even though ne2000 config page shows up enter NE2000?


I know ce.net 4.x is better than ce 2.1x in networking. but i think ce 211 at least support ethernet lan card and internet browsing through wired lan card. or this is the case?

Pls advise


Edited by iamjoe 2006-07-08 12:05 PM

Have you gone through all of the religiously repeated troubleshooting steps, vxUtil, check the H/PC slot pins, SP1 install, pcmcia.dll update etc?

Edit: It'll do everything CE4 does so long as the card is compatbile.

Edit 2: What is the J number of your card? J06, J16 etc?

vxutil installed. pinging router/gateway failed. hpc not connected to the gateway.

pc card slot working as i have used some other pc card slot.

sp1 pcmcia update not installed. i knew of these 2 upgrades long ago, but never bother 2 use them. probably high time upgrade them??


full product # pc-9801n-j12. confirmed to be working on NEC MP-880? ( or 780? i mean that 9-inch 800*600 nec hpc pro. lots of users in China. the japanese version got the driver built-in)

i have tried this card on 3 HPCs. the network config is the same as above. all failed. so probably not having 2 do with hpc pro sp1?

sharp hc-aj1 ce 211 hpc pro

intermec 6651 English HPC2k

the MIPS CE3 version of Epod. EPod is ce211. My unit is a real ce mips machine based on ce3 platform builder. no office suite, etc. with wlan driver built-in.

all failed. the same error message. the xxx site not found or unable to connect 2 xxx site

Edited by iamjoe 2006-07-08 1:10 PM

What does vxUtil information say when in DHCP mode?

It's probably the MCR730 you're thinking of. The 880 was western.

The PCMCIA update is often something you want, even if you don't touch SP1.

i have tried the card on 2 other hpcs; one is hpc 2k, one is ce3.

all failed. the same type of error message

we would really need your vxutil information. can you give us details?

also, i have had experiences where the lan card needed several tries before it started to work in a hpc, if it was used in a laptop before that.

a ne2000 card that is compatible with the CE ne2000 driver, should work with dhcp just fine, just like on your G138. even ce 2.0 can do this, so this is not a problem with ce 2.11.

vxutil info, as we've said?

vxutil info in DHCP mode:

Current IP

Handheld_PC
169.254.178.27

Adapters

NE20001 - NE2000 Compatible Ethernet Driver

IP Address : 169.254.178.27
Subnet Mask : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway : 0.0.0.0
Primary DNS :
Secondary DNS :
Primary WINS :
Secondary WINS :
DHCP Server : 255.255.255.255
Lease Obtained : Sat Jan 01 20:03:16 2000 (GMT)
Lease Expires : Sat Jan 01 20:03:16 2000 (GMT)


no doubt, the hpc failed to get an IP from the DHCP server. opening websites (even sites in IP address) in IE always returns "the connection to the website cannot be connected" error message.

Pinging (in vxutil) my gateway did not report lost connection, but give me a 5xxxxx (6-digit)ms value. I suppose just another sign of no connection to the dhcp server (my router)??

in Static mode, ping reports five bad pinging and Request Time out.

the ie error message is the same

the test info and results were generated on my Intermec 6651 with H2k


Edited by iamjoe 2006-07-09 12:40 PM

on a MIPS CE3 Epod, the problem remains the same pls advise

There is the problem with IE in black and white. I would hypotesise that this card has a slightly diffent chipset of firmware which means it is not Novell Ethernet compatible. There are different generations of the cards, and as cmonex will testify, I personally have always had bad luck with them - I got my first one of the blighters to work this year!

I couldn't find much specific western information on the card, let alone chipset data to aid you any further. Sorry.

yes. i doubt this card may not be fully compatible with HPC. maybe NEC just includes a driver in their hpc. it is true that mp880 can use this card flawlessly.

thanks for ur opinions.