[newbie] Help with WiFi cardsForum: Laptops Topic: [newbie] Help with WiFi cards started by: jeromeF Posted by jeromeF on May 18 2006,11:43
Hello, I installed DSL on an old COMPAQ Armada 4220T (P233, 64Mo RAM) as a virus-proof mobile mail and internet machine, and it works like a dream with a PCMCIA V90 modem for that use. Thanks to the developpers!However, I was not able to connect it to my home wireless network. I test 3 802.11b cards: Intel 2011b Compex WL11A Atmel 502 and had none working. Is there somewhere a detailed Howto for a Linux beginner to get at least one of these connected? Thanks! Posted by escay on May 18 2006,12:31
what have you already tried to get those working? just plugged them in and booted? which driver do you use? have you tried the ndiswrapper-method? if not, use the search-function on the forum. another thing you can do, is ask google for "wireless howto". Because you are using a pcmcia card, the "pcmcia howto" can give you further information on how the things work. maybe a post of the output from dmesg could help here, for further diagnosis) hope this helps - if you need further information, drop a pn to my account. iŽll try to help you, as far as i can. greetz escay Posted by Jerome on May 18 2006,19:49
Just a dumb question: as a key, should I enter the hex WEP key or a passphrase?
Posted by escay on May 18 2006,20:06
AFAIK the hexkey is needed here. so you got your other problem solved?
Posted by jeromeF on May 19 2006,13:02
Not yet, but the WL11A (Prism2 chipset) seems to be the best candidate. No joy with the ndiswrapper method for the other cards! Posted by tomv on June 06 2006,00:25
Here's what I had to do - AFTER I had a working card that DSL was happy with (which registered as ATH0, not WLAN0 like some) - the GUI might have worked too:At a terminal prompt, enter: iwconfig ath0 mode managed iwconfig ath0 rate auto iwconfig ath0 key 12:34:56:78:90:12:34:56:78:90:12:34 (hex WEP key with colons between each hex pair) pump -i ath0 voila! I could suddenly connect.. Doing it one step at a time like this helps, I think. HTH Posted by vattek on June 18 2006,14:50
i managed to install my integrated rt2500 wlan card with the help of th belkin guide -sweetmy laptop has a button to turn on the wlan, which just doesnt seem to be working even now. question is: how can i make it turn my card on.:rock: thx Posted by ZoOp on June 18 2006,15:39
Hi, plug your card in your pcmcia cardbus and run DSL. When dsl is up and running, type in a shell: lsmod and also iwconfig -a and report us the results back. yours z Edit: I assume that you entered the correct parameters for your router before you type the two commands in the shell (in wlanconfig, you should input your ESSID and WEP-key, e.g. the name of your home-network and the security key to crypt it). Posted by ZoOp on June 18 2006,15:42
edit: sorry for my previous post, it was actually a reply to the post of jeromeF.yours z Posted by jonam on June 19 2006,00:39
JeromeF,I would give DSL 2.1b a try as it has a newer kernel and PCMCIA card manager software. I had similar problems with my Compaq Armada 1530d and an HP 5700CT. I could get a standard PCMCIA ethernet card working but my wireless card would refuse to work. Changing both laptops to DSL 2.1b fixed the problem. The problem has to do with the way interrupts are routed to the Cardbus controller chips, especially the Texas Instruments series that the Armada laptops have (TI PCI 1220 in your case). DSL 2.1b has the card manager module that has the fix for this problem. You should do a "cat /proc/interrupts" to see if the Cardbus controller interrupts are sitting at zero. If they are, then you have this problem. Regards, Jonam |