MA401 works, really?

Forum: Networking
Topic: MA401 works, really?
started by: mbishopp

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Posted by mbishopp on Mar. 12 2008,04:39

I am a definite newbie to Linux and, of course, to DSL...so go easy on me

I checked out the list of wireless cards that supposedly work with DSL "out of the box"...and purchased the Netgear MA401 (b) PCMCIA card.

I have a Dell Latitude CP (266MHz MMX 64MB RAM) with a harddrive install of DSL 4.2.4. The wireless card is a NetGear MA401 Wireless PCMCIA Card

At bootup I get this error:

cardmgr[59]: starting, version is 3.2.2
cardmgr[59]: socket 0: Anonymous memory
cardmgr[59]: executing: 'modprobe memory_cs'
cardmgr[59]: + modprobe: Can't locate module memory_cs
cardmgr[59]: modprobe exited with status 255
cardmgr[59]: module /lib/modules/2.4.31/pcmcia/memory_cs.o not available
cardmgr[59]: get dev info on socket 0 failed: Resource temporarily unavailable

Also, when I look at the card in PC Card Control its says

Under the status tab:

Socket 0:
5V 16-bit PC Card
function 0: [busy]

I am not sure if the card is just bad or if I can diagnose this thing to figure out what is up.  I just need some advice on where to go next please.

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Posted by Subito Piano on Mar. 16 2008,03:16

Hi!  Not sure if i can do much -- i have a Netgear MA-401 (802.11b) in my P1 Toshiba and it works fine.  IDK about your codes, but have you tried configuring it anyway?  I think it's MENU>SETUP>NET SETUP>WLCARDCONFIG.  I never had great success with wireless in Linux but with DSL i only tried 2-3 things and i was up and running.

Another option is to load another live distro  (Knoppix, Puppy, antiX) and see if you can find the card.

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Posted by lucky13 on Mar. 17 2008,15:44

With the card inserted, open a console and type lspci. See if the card is recognized. It will be like this (which is mine so yours will be different with your chip, etc.):

Code Sample

01:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)

If not, you need to figure out why. It could be your PCMCIA slot (check with another card if you have one to see that it's identified with the same command). It could be bent pins inside the slot (rare but it can happen). It can be a dirty slot. It can be a slot that's shorted out or developed another issue. Or it can be a bad card.

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