Hybrid w/ Ethernet or 802.11b [Archive]

nclark

09-19-2002, 03:50 AM

I have performed the upgrade and now tested a number of cards. Unfortunately all have been unsuccessful, presumably due to a combination of lack of power and/or drivers. I have also been unsuccessful with a wired Ethernet card, for possibly the same reasons.

The cards I have tried are:

WiFi:
Cisco Aironet 340
Dell badged Lucent card (this does say 5V on it)
Symbol CF card in PCMCIA -> CF adaptor

Wired:
Socket low-power CF card in adaptor (this one is supposed to be NE2000 compatible - why on earth have Psion/Teklogic left this driver out?)
3COM Etherlink III

All a bit disappointing really. :( I might try to get hold of an old Psion Gold Card, but I'm not too hopeful as the older cards probably use higher voltage.

Still I like the higher speed and new Opera version of the upgrade. Now where's that DIMM?

fladda

09-19-2002, 08:49 AM

A collegue has been using the a netbook operating system card with 1.58beta for several months, installed in his Series-7.

Lucent Orinoco card worked OK for 802.11b in his Series-7 with the beta version of the Netbook operating system. Orinoco card does not draw an excessive amount of current. This card is available as an OEM item from many different manufacturers. FCC ID: is IMRWLPCE24H on my Lucent Orinoco card.

Are you sure that you've configured everything correctly ?

That said, it is possible that different versions of the series-7 motherboard might have their EEPROMs set to deliver different max currents to the PCMCIA slot ??? Do not confuse the EEPROM on the motherboard with the ROMs on the operating system daughtercard btw.

Ralph

stumac

09-19-2002, 08:49 AM

I too have performed the upgrade with the sole intention of using my new 7book to browse wirelessly from the living room through the 802.11 network in the house.

Unfortunately, I have had no success with my SMC WLAN card,. which appears to be of the same type as the ones used successfully in the netbook forum.:mad:

What's the story here? It's particularly disappointing to find this out after shelling out for the netBook ROM. Is there some way the S7's PC Card slot has been doctored to make it work less well? Can I doctor it back again?

Cards I have tried...

Unwired:

SMC EZ Connect SMC2632W

Wired:

Toshiba (Xircom) TPCENET 10/100
Project NC1210 10/100 (NE2000 compatible)

Has *anyone* had any success connecting the 7book to a network?

fladda

09-19-2002, 04:19 PM

Revision 158 of the Netbook operating system supports two types of WiFi 802.11b cards. These are :-

Lucent Orinoco Series
Cisco Aironet 3500/4800/340

Lucent Orinoco is available in lots of different guises from many OEM suppliers. Best way of identifying these cards is from the FCC ID number (see above for Lucent Orinoco FCC ID:). Lucent Orinoco clones can be identified easily as they have an external aerial connector.

Following website gives power consumptions for various 802.11b PCMCIA cards :-

http://www.cewindows.net/peripherals/pccardwirelesslan.htm

You will note that the Cisco 340 does NOT appear to be the same card as the Lucent Orinoco. Transmit currents are 350mA for the Cisco vs. 285mA for the Orinoco.

Because PCMCIA current is limited by the series-7 motherboard,
I suggest that only the Lucent Orinoco type cards are likely to work with a Series 7+. Cisco draws too much current.

I've just purchased several Enterasys 802.11b cards from the USA using Ebay for around GBP 22.00 each. These are Lucent Orinoco Silver clones and work OK in my Netbooks. I'll test them in my collegues series 7+ when he returns to our office next week.

Only the Psion Ethernet cards are supported by the Netbook ethernet driver(s). I don't understand why people on this board are expecting other types of cards to work ? All because a card is popular doesn't mean that it will magically work ! Netbook drivers only support the Psion Dacom Gold card and the Psion Gold card.

Incidentally my Newton Messagepad 2000/2100 has very good support for ethernet PCMCIA cards - much better then the Netbook. However, only real Lucent Orinoco card work on the Newton. Enterasys cards do not work. This is becasue the Newton appears to check the card type from the PCMCIA ID field. We need to be thankful that Psion are NOT doing this ! With a Netbook (Series-7?) and Lucent Orinoco silver clone card should work. Believe me that there are *loads* of these clone cards out there from just about all of the big computer vendors.

Hope this is helpful to somebody,

Ralph

fladda

09-19-2002, 04:41 PM

There appear to be two different types of the SMC2632W
802.11b card (see thread on PDAStreet Netbook forum). Whilst both types probably work on the Netook, I suggest that only the earlier type (i.e. Lucent Orinoco clone) will probably work with an upgraded Series 7+ (aka 7book). Earlier SMC2632W card is probably a lower power consumption card.

It would be most helpful if people started to quote the FCC ID: number for their 802.11b cards in these discussions. This is actually much more useful than the model number - as the FCC ID identifies what chipset is used inside the PCMCIA card. Many companies rebrand 802.11b PCMCIA cards from the likes of Lucent and Cisco and have one similar/identical model numbers for two different types of card !

FCC ID for the Lucent Orinoco Silver and Clones is
FCC ID: IMRWLPCE24H

Lucent Orinoco card will block your stylus.

Ralph

stumac

09-19-2002, 07:07 PM

Just to clarify on the SMC card I have - the FCC ID is as follows:

LLM002SMC2632W

This doesn't fit with some of the other ID's being mentioned, so I have to assume that the SMC card (1st generation) is not a Lucent clone...

As ever, please post any information about 7book / WLAN compatibility so I can make the right choice in purchasing a new WLAN card for my 7book!

wanman

09-20-2002, 04:07 AM

Another point that you should all note is that (according to the Psion website), the 7 series motherboards were restricted so that the PC Card Slot will only support cards requiring no more than 300mA to operate. The Netbook has a larger 650mA limit.

This restriction is reported to be on the main board and not on the personality module / software. Check the cards you are testing. I think you will find the majority of the wireless cards use around 450mA which is too much for the poor old 7.

There are cabled ethernet modem cards which do come under this 300mA limit but they tend to be the newer models and you will have to pay the new price !!. Examples are the 3Com Megahertz (not tested with the 7 so not sure if the generic drivers will work with this card) and the Psion CombineIT card 56k 10/100 Lan (which definitely does work) although this will exceed the 300mA if you use both the modem and ethernet together. As there is only one socket on this card this will not be a problem.

Regards

Si

diem

09-20-2002, 04:35 AM

Originally posted by wanman
This restriction is reported to be on the main board and not on the personality module / software.

This is fascinating, since if the restriction really is implemented on the motherboard then it can, of force, only apply to early 7s, since we know that the same motherboard has been used since some unspecified serial number. Unless of course there's some links on the board that can be cut so as to make the difference at assembly.

the Psion CombineIT card 56k 10/100 Lan (which definitely does work) although this will exceed the 300mA if you use both the modem and ethernet together. As there is only one socket on this card this will not be a problem.

That's interesting too - I have the 10/100 ethernet only CombineIT card, and it has two sockets! CombineIT is all about having one card that can be flashed to do different jobs, so im fascinated as to how both modem and ethernet functionality can operate through one socket - does it come with two dongles?

wanman

09-20-2002, 04:47 AM

This is fascinating, since if the restriction really is implemented on the motherboard then it can, of force, only apply to early 7s, since we know that the same motherboard has been used since some unspecified serial number. Unless of course there's some links on the board that can be cut so as to make the difference at assembly.

Not sure when this data was put on their website. But if users are getting problems with cards that definitely work with the netbook then this is likely to be the cause. I am not sure how it is achieved or why it should have even be necessary in view of the lack of ethernet support on the 7.

That's interesting too - I have the 10/100 ethernet only CombineIT card, and it has two sockets! CombineIT is all about having one card that can be flashed to do different jobs, so im fascinated as to how both modem and ethernet functionality can operate through one socket - does it come with two dongles?

I think the Combine IT card comes with two seperate cables rather than dongles. One for a modem connection and one for a network connection. I was only aware of one port when using them in the past although two would make sense. What is the second socket on your ethernet only card used for?

I wish someone would have the time and money to do some proper reseach on this so we can get a definitive list and set of instructions. With so much theory and hearsay it is getting a little confusing out there. Even more so now the 7book has arrived to muddy the waters.

Si

diem

09-20-2002, 05:01 AM

Originally posted by wanman
What is the second socket on your ethernet only card used for?

I think its for ISDN if I were to get the card flashed.

I wish someone would have the time and money to do some proper reseach on this so we can get a definitive list and set of instructions. With so much theory and hearsay it is getting a little confusing out there. Even more so now the 7book has arrived to muddy the waters.

chin up!

I think with this thread and the 'PC Card Compatibility' one in the nB forum we are beginning to get an understanding - thanks be to fladda for his recent couple of posts on this thread - very informative!

stumac

09-21-2002, 05:11 PM

As seen above, my SMC card didn't work, so I went and looked for a lower power WLAN card for my new 7book.

Checking out Avaya's website (http://www.avaya.com/ac/common/index.jhtml?location=M1H1005G1015F2063P3146N5013) I determined that the power consumption of this Lucent card (Lucent PC24E-H-ET) is within the 300mA limit mentioned above.

So I bought one from expansys.com.

It arrived this am and with great excitement I plugged it in to my new 7book. And nothing happened. No network, no lights no nothing (and my PC card slot works, as I've checked it out with my TDK Global Pro ISDN card).

£100 quid down the drain (though it'll work with my iPaq).

Any suggestions anyone?

fladda

09-21-2002, 06:27 PM

Oh dear, you're not having much luck Mr. Stumac.

Can you confirm that your new 802.11b PCMCIA card if FCC ID: IMRWLPCE24H ? This is the FCC ID: for a Lucent Orinoco Silver 802.11b PCMCIA card (PCCard).

Is your new 802.11b card 5V and 16-bit (boxes ticked on the rear of the card) ?

We need to establish if the netbook drivers work with the latest versions of the Lucent Orinoco 802.11b cards. Also need to establish whether earlier series 7s deliver less current to the PCMCIA port that later series 7s. Remeber that this current limit is set in an EEPROM on the motherboard, along with the machine type and serial number etc.

<thinks - somebody needs to write a quick patch to change this value in the EEPROM. Shame that we don't have RON (RiscOS On the Netbook) yet, as this sort of stuff is much easier using RiscOS rather than EPOC. >

100 GBP is a bit expensive for an 802.11b card. I recently bought 4 Enterasys Roamabout cards for this price from the States using Ebay. Roamabout is yet another type of rebadged Lucent Orinoco silver 802.11b card.

On Monday I will be able to test the Roamabout 802.11b card(s) in my collegues upgraded Series-7. Sod's law that my colleque was overseas on business last week. However, as I've stated before, my collegues upgraded Series-7 worked OK with my pucca Lucent Orinoco silver a few weeks ago, so we do know that *some* Series-7s do work with *some* 802.11b cards.

My collegues Series 7 is fairly new - estimated to be about 18 months old. Bought for a snip in a Tempo closing down sale. If the 802.11b works OK on Monday I will post the details including the serial number of my collegues Series-7.

Surely somebody else has managed to get 802.11b working with an upgraded Series-7 ? I am beginning to wonder if I dreamt that my collegues Series-7 worked OK a few weeks ago !!! No, I'm pretty sure it did work. We were both relieved at the time as we knew that the Lucent Orinoco card was close to the PCMCIA current limit.

Ralph

Incidentally PCCard means 16-bit card (originally called PCMCIA)whereas Cardbus means 32-bit card. No 32-bit Cardbus cards are supported in the Series-7/Netbook AFAIK.

fladda

09-23-2002, 05:22 AM

Put an Enterasys Roamabout (FCC ID: IMRWLPCE24H) in my collegues upgraded Series 7 this morning. Worked fine for 802.11b - two green LED on the 802.11b card were flashing away as normal.

This series 7 was originally shipped with a rev 754 operating system card.

This proves that the Lucent Orinoco type card WILL work in the later versions of the Series 7. Further work needs to be done by someone to determine :-

1. Are different versions of the Series 7 programmed to supply different maximum currents on the PCMCIA port ?

2. Are new versions of the Lucent Orinoco 802.11b card compatible with the new Netbook drivers (my Enterasys Roamabout cards are approx. two years old).

Ralph

spegru

09-23-2002, 04:26 PM

Fladda you said:
Remeber that this current limit is set in an EEPROM on the motherboard, along with the machine type and serial number etc.

Are you sure about this (and how)? Personally I'd be very surprised if there were any difference between S7 and nB motherboards at all - simply because there would have been no need to do it from Psion's point of view as the S7 OS doesn't do ethernet anyway.

I wonder if the problems people are having are simply because of incorrect drivers being used.

Diem Is there a way of tabulating the status of all these cards rather than having to trawl the posts?

rgds
spegru

diem

09-24-2002, 04:21 AM

Yes, I will be bunging just such a table on my website this week, as part of my massive update - the site's quadrupling in size! :cool:

wanman

09-24-2002, 04:41 AM

Hi Ralph,

Re your experiment with the Enterasys Roamabout PC card, I have done some digging and found out that it's power consumption falls below the 300mA limit of the 7.

Doze mode - 9mA
Receive mode - 185mA
Transmit mode - 285mA
5V card

This is excellent for a 2yr old card as earlier cards tended to use more power. This could be why it worked with a 7 shipped with build 754 (Still not sure if this is the unique or generic 7 motherboard). Would be nice to try a card we definitely have drivers for but with a slightly higher power consumption (say 350/400mA) on this machine.

Does anyone know a friend or relative who used to work for Psion on the 7/Netbook. Is there anyone out there that can give us some definites on this motherboard issue.

Keep up the good work Fladda.

Regards
Si

fladda

09-24-2002, 08:25 AM

Enterasys Roamabout card is a re-badged lucent Orinoco Silver. I've got both of these cards, and they both work in my collegues upgraded Series 7. Both cards are FCC ID: IMRWLPCE24H.

One of the drivers suplied with the Netbook 158 operating sytem is for the Lucent Orinoco.

Ralph

nclark

09-24-2002, 08:47 AM

The Dell TruMobile 1150 adapter has the same FCC ID but does not work with my upgraded 7 (751).

wanman

09-24-2002, 09:04 AM

nclark,

Is there anyway you can try this card on a 754/756 machine? Do you have any friends that own an upgraded Psion? Saying that, one reason that the Dell card may not have work with the upgraded 7 is the power consumption. The Dell is spec'd above the 300mA limit whereas the Enterasys Roamabout comes in slightly below.

It is a shame that we are left scrabbling around trying to get the facts about all this when I am sure there are Psion employee's out there who would be able to provide the relevant information we need easily.

Regards

Si

stumac

09-24-2002, 09:08 AM

More on the ongoing saga of my not working 802.11 card, and thanks to all those who're researching this.

My 7book had a S7 build of 751, so I guess it must be one of the old ones.

The network card doesn't appear to have an FCC number on it - this seems a little strange, so I've attached a picture of the front and back of the bloomin' thing for anyone to make a stab at identifying this.

nclark

09-24-2002, 09:19 AM

Wanman

I'm afraid I'm one of the Elite and don't know anyone else who has a 7 or netbook ;)

Stumac

Your picture looks very similar to my Dell card, even havin the same mac address range (00022d4xxxxx). The same boxes are checked on the bottom too. The lucent part no on mine is PC24E-H-FC. I can't quite make yours out but think it end in ET instead.

wanman

09-24-2002, 09:25 AM

Stumac/Nclark

I have had a look at the Avaya web site and it seems there are two forms of the card (although this is not clear). A silver with 64bit WEP encryption and a gold with 128bit RC4 encryption. Which encryption does your cards use? Could this be related. Fladda has confirmed in an earlier post that he tried a rebadged Lucent Orinoco Silver with a 754 build 7 and it worked.

Si

nclark

09-24-2002, 09:28 AM

Mine has 128RC4. I believe Stumac's does too from the legend on the back.

wanman

09-24-2002, 09:33 AM

Perhaps that could be the key then. Does anyone know if the lucent drivers included in the netbook OS support the 128bit RC4 encryption cards? or does it only support WEP encryption cards? We now know that a web 64bit card works.

Regards

Si

stumac

09-24-2002, 09:48 AM

wanman,

The card is an Avaya Gold card, with a Lucent P/No of PC24E-H-ET.

Perhaps it's an encryption thing but I suspect not - it should work with encryption disabled and the right SSID and channel number - I would have thought...

wanman

09-24-2002, 09:56 AM

Is the chip set for the gold and silver cards the same though? Good place to check would be the Windows drivers. Are there seperate drivers for the gold/silver cards? If not then can we assume the chipset is similar/identical?

There is a posting on a similar thread on the Netbook forum that 'bblon' has got his/her lucent gold card working on a netbook. on the same thread, however, 'alserrano' confirms that their Avaya gold card does not work on the Netbook. Perhaps these problems you are experiencing are not related to the power consumption but merely the drivers?

http://www.pdastreet.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=690&perpage=15&pagenumber=1
(Check out page 1 for the first and 2 for the second.)

Regards
Si

freelanc45

09-26-2002, 07:17 AM

Originally posted by fladda
Enterasys Roamabout card is a re-badged lucent Orinoco Silver. I've got both of these cards, and they both work in my collegues upgraded Series 7. Both cards are FCC ID: IMRWLPCE24H.

One of the drivers suplied with the Netbook 158 operating sytem is for the Lucent Orinoco.

Ralph

I have with interest read your comments of buying your Enterasys Roamabout cards in US. However, on the RoamAbout Family website I also read the following:

Use -AA for North America,
-AB for Europe/Asia-Pacific, -AF for
France/Spain, -AJ for Japan

Have you experienced any problems of that kind with your US-bought Enterasys 802.11b- cards ?

Otherwise I can tell you all that a guy on ebay has 88 of these cards for sale for just $ 32 each. Look http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2057188819

Kim/UK

fladda

09-26-2002, 04:01 PM

I'm no expert on 802.11b WiFi cards. However, from what I've read the main difference between cards for different territories is the number of available channels. From memory a pucca UK 802.11b card has slightly more channels available than a US card.

In practical terms however a US 802.11b card will work just fine in the UK.

Note that the Lucent Orinoco silver and gold cards are essentially the same hardware. It is possible to upgrade the silver card to gold, which gives you 128bit WEP encryption. Marketing.

Ralph

Jack B Nimble

10-09-2002, 02:09 AM

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who posted info in this and other threads. Diem's FAQ in particular was very helpful. I am posting from a 7Book as we speak. For the record, my 7 ROM was labeled version 756 and the WLAN NIC is a Lucent Gold.

Thanks!

freelanc45

10-10-2002, 06:06 AM

My 7book has a 754 motherboard so I felt on safe ground when I bought two Enterasys RoamAbout WiFi PC-kort med FCC ID: IMRWLPCE24H on Ebay US.
Many of you have written that this card should work perfect in my 7book.
Unfortunately, this is not the case for me. The card is totally dead in my 7book whatever setup I am using. However, it works perfectly well in an old notebook with Windows 95, so the card should be okay, but just not in my 7book.
Any ideas ?
Otherwise, many thanks for all your useful information which I have read with big interest.

Kim Bang-Sorensen/UK

fladda

10-10-2002, 04:44 PM

You are opening a 'Connect to Internet' dialogue box aren't you ?
i.e. running Opera or another application that requires a TCP/IP connection to the outside world.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but others on this group have assumed that the Orinoco's LEDs should come on simply by inserting the WiFi card - this is not the case. Netbook only turns on the power to the card when required. This is way you would want the Netbook to work. 802.11b card LEDs should start flashing shortly after hitting OK in the 'Connect to Internet' dialog box after selecting the Lucent card.

Ralph

Jack B Nimble

10-10-2002, 08:18 PM

fladda, I cannot speak for for freelanc, but I can say that I made the same mistake when I first tried it. I put in a Lucent Gold card, ran through the setup, ran NetStat, and got annoyed when it seemed like it didn't see the card. According to the info on Diem's list, I thought it should work, but figured I was misreading something.

When I got the same results with a Silver, which I was pretty sure should work, I went back and checked everything. I launched Opera thinking NetStat was corrupt, and everything started working.

Felt pretty damn silly later when I tried the Gold card again and it worked fine! :rolleyes: