How to get Orinoco Gold PCMCIA WiFi card working?

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cave

How to get Orinoco Gold PCMCIA WiFi card working?

#1 Post by cave »

Done and done! Appreciate all suggestions and help, looking forward to trying Puppy again in the future. To be honest, I'm a newbie and tried very hard to get my Orinoco Gold PCMCIA card to work with ndiswrapper...but couldn't make it happen, and after too many hours trying again and again, had to give up for the time being.

distortedstar
Posts: 87
Joined: Mon 31 Oct 2005, 18:01

#2 Post by distortedstar »

I have yet to be successful getting wireless to work on any linux. I can't really afford a new card so its pretty frustrating. I completely understand. Good luck, and hope to see you back!

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BlackAdder
Posts: 385
Joined: Sun 22 May 2005, 23:29

Wifi Support

#3 Post by BlackAdder »

cave - if you have not already left us, your Orinoco Gold card may be supported by the madwifi drivers for Puppy. Look here for information about drivers, how to identify your card etc.
distortedstar - can you tell us about your wireless adapter. If it is PCI or PCMCIA, can you run lspci and post the result here, please?

distortedstar
Posts: 87
Joined: Mon 31 Oct 2005, 18:01

#4 Post by distortedstar »

Thanks for the reply!

I have a DWL-650 revP PCMCIA card. I tried to resolve the issue at this thread. I remember some discussion about lspci. Interestingly, I had gotten the "search for network" light to start blinking after issuing "modprobe orinoco_cs" However, that is not working now. Perhaps because I'm using pizzapup? I don't see how it would make a difference since it is based on 1.05, which is what I was using when that worked...anyways, here's lspci:

# lspci
0:0.0 8086:1a30 (rev 04)
0:1.0 8086:1a31 (rev 04)
0:29.0 8086:2482 (rev 02)
0:29.2 8086:2487 (rev 02)
0:30.0 8086:2448 (rev 42)
0:31.0 8086:248c (rev 02)
0:31.1 8086:248a (rev 02)
0:31.5 8086:2485 (rev 02)
0:31.6 8086:2486 (rev 02)
1:0.0 10de:0174 (rev a3)
2:0.0 10b7:9200 (rev 78)
2:1.0 104c:ac42
2:1.1 104c:ac42
2:1.2 104c:8027

thanks again!

User avatar
BlackAdder
Posts: 385
Joined: Sun 22 May 2005, 23:29

DWL-650 RevP

#5 Post by BlackAdder »

Hmm! The DWL-650 had various chipsets, depending on the revision. According to material from the D-Link web site, your card has a Prism chipset and should show as having a pci id of 1260:3873 - or possibly (but unlikely) 2001:3700 . Nothing like that shows on your list; it has ethernet, video, firewire, modem. Embarrassed to ask the question, but was the card fully inserted?

Assuming that you can get the card recognised, try the Prism54 driver in Puppy:

Code: Select all

#modprobe prism54
#iwconfig
If you are in luck, that should show a wireless connection, possibly wlan0. Then you can try configuring.

Hope this helps.

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#6 Post by tempestuous »

distorted star (and BlackAdder)
You didn't mention in that other thread that you have the revision P. There are at least 6 different versions of the DWL-650.
I'm glad that someone has asked about the DWL-650 revP - this adaptor contains the (somewhat tricky) Prism3 SSF chipset, which requires special firmware loading routines.
Don't bother trying the Prism54 driver, this is for Prism GT and later G mode chipsets.

Both my HostAP and linux-wlan-ng driver packages, in theory, should work with your adaptor. I even made a point of this in the README's. These packages are at http://mymirrors.homelinux.org/puppy/wireless/

I suggest you try the HostAP driver. linux-wlan-ng requires verbose wireless setup commands.
You will see in the hostap_README an extra command to load the firmware -
/usr/local/bin/hostap_fw_load wlan0

I suggested that this command should be run after "modprobe hostap_cs", but you may need to experiment. Perhaps the firmware should be loaded prior to modprobe?

It would be good to hear if you succeed.


Your adaptor is not listed on the ndiswrapper compatibility list at http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/medi ... x.php/List
This doesn't surprise me. The necessary firmware would certainly be contained within the Windows DWL-650 driver, but I can't imagine that ndiswrapper contains any extra code that would load this firmware.

distortedstar
Posts: 87
Joined: Mon 31 Oct 2005, 18:01

#7 Post by distortedstar »

Thanks so much for your suggestions, and please accept my apologies for this late reply...my life was crazy there for a bit. But I have some time to devote to solving this problem now.

To the best of my knowlege, I've installed the hostap package correctly. I ran

#modprobe hostap_cs

and then

# /usr/local/bin/hostap_fw_load wlan0

which spit out:

Downloading primary firmware /etc/firmware/pm010102.hex
srec summary for pm010102.hex
Included file name: PM010102.HEX
Component: 0x0015 1.1.2 (primary firmware)


Verifying update compatibility and combining data:
Plugging PDR 0400 (NIC configuration): ram16=1 pci=0 (03 00)
OK.

Downloading to volatile memory (RAM).
OK.
srec summary for pm010102.hex
Included file name: PM010102.HEX
Component: 0x0015 1.1.2 (primary firmware)

ioctl[PRISM2_IOCTL_HOSTAPD]: No data available
STAID not available (maybe running PRI-only)
ioctl[PRISM2_IOCTL_HOSTAPD]: No data available
ioctl[PRISM2_IOCTL_HOSTAPD]: No data available

Verifying update compatibility and combining data:
Plug record length mismatch (PDR=0x0001): 6 != 16
==> extend from default
OK.

Downloading to volatile memory (RAM).
OK.
Downloading secondary (station) firmware /etc/firmware/rf010804.hex
srec summary for rf010804.hex
Included file name: rf010804.hex
Component: 0x001f 1.8.4 (station firmware)

ioctl[PRISM2_IOCTL_HOSTAPD]: No data available
STAID not available (maybe running PRI-only)
ioctl[PRISM2_IOCTL_HOSTAPD]: No data available
ioctl[PRISM2_IOCTL_HOSTAPD]: No data available

Verifying update compatibility and combining data:
OK.

Downloading to volatile memory (RAM).
OK.
Components after download:
NICID: 0x801d v1.0.0
PRIID: 0x0015 v1.1.2
STAID: 0x001f v1.8.4
Card is ready with both PRI and STA firmware images


The "searching for network" light did not start blinking, and I haven't been able to get it detect a network.

iwconfig reports:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

Warning: Driver for device wifi0 recommend version 18 of Wireless Extension,
but has been compiled with version 16, therefore some driver features
may not be available...

wifi0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"test"
Mode:Master Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00 Bit Rate:11Mb/s
Sensitivity=1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"test"
Mode:Master Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00 Bit Rate:11Mb/s
Sensitivity=1/3


WAG reports:

wireless card active
wireless card responding

no module loaded
dhcpcd not running
wifi-beta not installed

wifi0
wlan0 enabled
no IP assigned to wifi0
wlan0
ap test failure
no internet ping test

0 wireless network(s) detected
0 open network(s) detected
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0


dhcpcd toggle doesn't seem to work.

So, no luck yet. But I think we're making progress!

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#8 Post by tempestuous »

Yes, it sounds like you're close. I just read this in the HostAP README -
"Please note that the current driver version enables the Prism2/2.5/3 card only when at least one of the interfaces is set up (e.g., with 'ifconfig wlan0 up').
So, try these commands -

modprobe hostap_cs
/usr/local/bin/hostap_fw_load wlan0
## you may need to load the driver again ?
modprobe hostap_cs

## now bring up the interface (unconfigured)
ifconfig wlan0 up

iwconfig wlan0 essid MY_ESSID key 1234567890 mode managed
dhcpcd -t 20 -h puppypc -d wlan0


Until you are confident that everything works by setting it up manually, don't use WAG.
WAG manages wireless connections, but won't help set up the driver.

distortedstar
Posts: 87
Joined: Mon 31 Oct 2005, 18:01

#9 Post by distortedstar »

Apologies for the long absence once again. No sooner did I get through finals then Christmas frenzy hit. Am I the only one grateful that it only comes once a year?

Alright! Your instructions worked to get my card to search for a network. Unfortunately, I'm not in a wireless area right now. I will be trying to connect to an unencrypted network, so for key, can just put "off" instead of a number?

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#10 Post by tempestuous »

Yes -
key off

distortedstar
Posts: 87
Joined: Mon 31 Oct 2005, 18:01

#11 Post by distortedstar »

Success! I connected to the network at my local library today. Thank you tempestuous!

the only problem was that I had to boot up in winxp to find out the essid. That kind of sucked, but at least I can get online and create scripts for my favorite places.

Is there anyway to scan for networks?

Thanks again, all of you that contributed to me finding a solution. I am so happy!

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#12 Post by tempestuous »

Now that you know the driver works, you can use WAG to scan for networks. I don't know much about WAG myself.
If you have problems with it, you should make a new post with a useful title like "WAG with HostAP driver", because this current thread is way off-topic already.

Also, what was the exact order of the commands in the end?
Did you have to use "ifconfig wlan0 up"?

distortedstar
Posts: 87
Joined: Mon 31 Oct 2005, 18:01

#13 Post by distortedstar »

You are absolutely correct about this thread being off topic. I'll start a new discussion for any further questions or insights.

The exact order of commands I used:

modprobe hostap_cs
/usr/local/bin/hostpa_fw_load wlan0
modprobe hostap_cs (not sure if this was necessary, but I did it anyways)
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 essid MY_ESSID key 1234567890 mode managed
dhcpcd -t 20 -h puppypc -d wlan0

So, exactly as you wrote, in the exact order you specified. Worked great. Like I said, the only hiccup was find the essid.

tempestuous
Posts: 5464
Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
Location: Australia

#14 Post by tempestuous »

Thanks. You're the first to confirm that this driver works with a Prism3-SSF device. The HostAP site does not provide the necessary firmware, but vague instructions instead on how to extract it from the Windows driver. So it took some detective work to find the correct firmware on the web, and it's good to see that this firmware worked for your DWL-650 revP.
I will now update the hostap_README.

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