Networking :: Can't get ndiswrapper to load Windows driver

I'm using the current version of DSL on an old laptop with 64MB of RAM.

I'm trying to get going a Netgear WG511v2 wireless card. The PCMCIA tool tells me that my card has the Marvell 88W8310 chipset.

I understand that my only possibilities are the Windows driver, together with either ndiswrapper or the Linuxant driverloader. I'm trying the first for now.

I've followed the instructions at the ndiswrapper site as far as I can. When I run ndiswrapper -l, I get the message that says "driver installed, hardware present". However, when I do modprobe ndiswrapper and then check the dmesg output, I get a line saying:
<3> ndiswrapper (NdisMAllocateSharedMemory:926): couldn't allocate 261376 bytes of un-cached DMA memory

followed by another line saying that the Windows driver couldn't initialise the device.

I found in the forums a post with the title "WG511v2 - works, but doesn't work....", in which dare2bfree said he'd got a WG511v2 with the Marvell chipset going by following earlier instructions given by Winter Knight. I assume that dare2bfree didn't get at any stage the dmesg output I got.

Am I unable to get the card going because I only have 64MB of RAM or is there some way I can overcome this problem?

Thanks for reading this,

Leslie

I don't think this is the problem, but have you copied both the *.inf and *.sys windows driver files? I believe ndiswrapper needs both.

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<3> ndiswrapper (NdisMAllocateSharedMemory:926): couldn't allocate 261376 bytes of un-cached DMA memory

To me, that is the main problem. Afaik this has happened mostly to low-memory users... did you try booting with "lowram base norestore" etc. just to see if it works?

@Juanito

Yes, I did copy the .sys file as well as the .INF file.

@^thehatsrule^

I am running DSL via frugal install.

I'm not sure how to try what you suggest.

What I'm thinking of doing is editing the menu.lst file to add an additional option similar to the existing default one, with the first and last lines the same, but with the middle line edited.

The line in my current default option that begins with "kernel" reads as follows:

kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda1 quiet vga=normal noacpi noapm nodma noscsi frugal

Would it be sufficient just to add to the end of that line in my new option the words "loram base norestore" or am I misunderstanding altogether how to do what you're suggesting?

Also, could there be any relevance to my problem that, as I now see, I boot up with nodma, given the complaint I get about no un-cached DMA memory?

Thanks to both for your replies.

Leslie

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Would it be sufficient just to add to the end of that line in my new option the words "loram base norestore" or am I misunderstanding altogether how to do what you're suggesting?

Yes, or you could create another entry just for testing purposes.

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Also, could there be any relevance to my problem that, as I now see, I boot up with nodma, given the complaint I get about no un-cached DMA memory?

afaik the nodma boot parameter is to turn off dma for IDE devices only (although if your system supports it, you should use it for better drive access) and shouldn't have anything to do with ndiswrapper.

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