pencentra 200 and orinoco gold MIPS

Just to be clear on this, I am working from a hard reset machine (pencentra200 hpcpro). I only saw one update available thru fujitsu which I did not install as the description of the update related to a screen issue which I have not seen. I dont know of any pcmcia updates for this machine.

I saw a microsoft update to wceload for certain machines. link to microsoft

this does not install thru activesync. This update does relate to a hanging issue when installing from cab files. The update does not recognize my machine as one that needs the new file. I extracted the wceload file from it anyway, and tried to install the cab using that wceload (may have just been the same as the preinstalled version) and there was no difference. Still hangs up after displaying the 'install to..' popup. (this updated wceload may be for ppc or some other format)

I was not able to get the latest driver package from the hcl to install on the machine. (the 404 and 406 ce2.0 files did install) The new driver would hang up before writing files. This happened using active sync, and running the cab from the machine). I even extracted the files for the 4100 cab and dumped them into the windows dir and i could not get it to work that way either. (I didnt try dumping the 3000 cab). I did get the slightly older driver package 3000 cab files to work by manually dumping all files into windows, as explained above.



So just for future reference, are you definitely saying that there is a cisco driver which will run an orinoco gold card? is this the aironet 340/41/42 driver? I noticed my hp720 has aironet drivers preinstalled. Can these drivers be used with an orinoco card? I looked around a little online and I do not see any references of other people using cisco drivers with the agere card but with so many names for the lucent/agere/etc, I may have missed it.

I dont know why I care, but maybe someone else can use the info.

Progress on this issue.

After getting the driver to 'work', I didnt really test it very long. A day later, I used it again, and conected to my router, and got onto the internet. After a few minutes, the wireless signal connection crapped out. This may be for any number of reasons. It could be interference from other 2.4ghz signals etc. It may be the specific firmware revision of my card. (I had adjusted that in the past). It may just be the powersave setting in the control applet. I dont know enough to really tell what was happening, but I suspect the card was starting to search for other signals for some reason.

I may or may not look further into this. I really only bought this card to test out the scanning/wardriving/etc abilities. I use a different card (prism based) most of the time. I am just adding this info, incase anyone reads this thread and believes that I have a confirmed working driver for the pencentra200 with orinoco gold. At this point, I can only say the driver and control panel/tray icon do start up, the card makes a good connection using a specific SSID and WEP 64 key, the site survey works, and I was able to stay connected long enough to load a couple of web pages.

If I wind up getting a confirmed long term solid connection with this or another driver setup, I'll post again. (but I may be done with this)

Cisco driver was not to reference with the gold card.

I just stated that it worked on the Pencentra HPC 2000 model. Aironet 342.



The Agere driver for the ORiNOCO Gold (802.11b)

Windows CE 3.00:
Download Driver






S/F,
CEYA!

Edited by Ceya 2007-06-01 8:21 AM

no, the cisco is a different chipset from the agere.

probably the powersave is interfering, i've had that problem with some cards. so try turning off the powersave.

looking forward to better results

Edited by cmonex 2007-06-01 8:31 AM

captainvideo is still getting exactly the same results I was getting on mine. Since his and mine are outdoor (frontlit reflective screen) versions, while Ceya's is indoor (backlit), I wonder if there's any difference in hardware (or firmware version?) between the indoor and outdoor units.

EDIT: wait, quiche's is indoor too IIRC, but she's also having this problem. Okay, I'm officially confused.

Edited by CE Geek 2007-06-01 5:47 PM

Cisco driver works on both HPC 2000 and Pro.

Agere only HPC 2000 but still trying HPC Pro to work.

S/F,
CEYA!

HPC Pro did not want to load driver from HCL.

S/F,
CEYA!

I am a glutton for punishment.

I grabbed another of my stack of doorstops as the battery on the first went dead. I decided to try a different driver. I used the extracted cab from the hcl, but I used the 3000 version, not the 4100. The 3000 cab from the hcl version (v7.82 build 881), while it will not install, the files will work. Manually extracted and copied to the windows directory. (I used CABWUZ 2.0 from ocpsoftware) The dll filename is WLAGS46.DLL.

My earlier post I had done the same with the v7.62 build 632
(3000cab), and had that working.

I had tried the 4100 version, and it doesnt seem to work at all for me. (The extracted dll's, and the exe for the control applet). This may be for hpc2000 only.?

The control applet for the latest version is slightly different than the 7.62 version, but essentially the same. There looks like maybe an additional checkbox for power save outside of the profiles, but it didnt seem to work for me.

I ran the earlier 7.62 driver for a little while this morning. I had the power save turned off, and I seemed to be able to keep a connection to the router. I did get a popup with a 'network error' after a while, and I lost my networking functionality (the wireless connection held). The unit still had the correct ip listed under networking utilities, but I had to remove the card and get the whole thing re-recognized to be able to utilize the network again. I am not getting any further involved with this right now.

I have not tested the new driver any further than a quick connection using ssid and wep64, ip assigned thru dhcp, ability to reach www.

So far, it looks like the 4000 mips cabs in the last 2 driver disrto's discussed here are no good for my pencentra200's hpcpro, although active sync and the pencentra itself want to try to install these versions. The 3000 cabs do seem to contain working drivers, but activesync and the pencentra units do not want to install these cabs. The files can be extracted and manually copied to the windows dir. Alternately, someone could edit the cabs or expand and recompress them with the correct specs to let the pencentra install them.

Now that I have done a bit to contribute, can anyone direct me to any other websites that might have specific troubleshooting discussions/info for the pencentra? I have found a few general wince sites, but it seems like hpcfactor is the only place that has any threads that deal with pencentra at all. --And there are like 4 or 5 items here if that many. Aside from that if one of the other pencentra owners knows of a better onscreen keyboard than the built in one, I would be interested.

interesting. i guess if there was a 4000 (not 4100) cab, that would try to install, and would also work because that is the unoptimized generic mips build. oh well. somehow the pencentra must have some id wrong somewhere. same for my sigmarion 3 it is a normal xscale but it identifies itself as arm720 or whatever, so cab's won't install without a hack. (either id in cab can be changed or install a wceload extension)

glad it works after all.. you do like to solve problems i will admit i don't use hpc pro for browsing. hpc2000 is the first platform i see as suitable. (and then ce.net)

i don't know of a pencentra site but just ask and we'll try to answer. most of the issues are not pencentra specific.

Edited by cmonex 2007-06-02 5:11 PM

I was thinking that too when I read captainvideo's post. Reminds me a little of the J720 issue.

I guess we just need to get used to extracting files from CABs. What do you use to extract them, captainvideo?

i've never had an issue with the j720. can you mention example programs?

I haven't owned a 720 (though at the moment I possess one that I bought for a colleague). But I recall hearing that some 720s were missing a registry key to identify them as an H/PC 2000 device.

J720 no issues at all with HPC driver. tested on 5 different ones.

i will manually input for the PCentra HPC pro and see what happens.

S/F,
CEYA!

ive got the win ce 2.11 to get on the hpc pro model but nothing . i installed cab files and nothing. im working on it.

S/F,
CEYA!

I was able to get my NetGear card to work on the PenCentra 200 HPC Pro. So it would seem the PenCentra only does Prism based cards.