Adventures in MINI-PCI Wireless card for T30?

[silo]

I bought a T30 on eBay. Very nice. Planned to install a wireless card (Intel Pro Wireless 2915ABGNetwork Connector) and run the 1802 fix. Go tthe card, installed, got the 1802 error msg, started to read the endless thread(s) on the hack, decided I'd rather just buy a card that IBM certifies will work and not give error.

Can you tell me which card is OK by IBM? A link would be appreciated.

[LtTPfan]

As far as I can tell, the only cards available for the T30 are the Cisco/Aironet and the Intel/Pro 2100, both of which are only 802.11b. Are you sure you want to be limited to 11mb transfer rate? If you do, I'll gladly trade you the factory card that came with my T30.

I've used the no1802 hack. It works great and is totally reversible, just unplug the AC adapter, disconnect the battery, and disconnect the CMOS battery--you get the 1802 nag again. The hardest part of installing the hack is creating a DOS boot disk with the hack on it. This is very simple if you have a floppy drive (in my opinion a floppy is a must for every machine), if not, burning a bootable CD is a little more complicated; and of course you need a CD burner. I made an autoexec batch file with on-screen messages telling what it's doing an offering a chance to exit, which I put into a self extracting .zip file that I can upload to a website for downloading. I was also going to create the same image for burning onto a CD but haven't gotten around to it.

[silo]

As far as I can tell, the only cards available for the T30 are the Cisco/Aironet and the Intel/Pro 2100, both of which are only 802.11b. Are you sure you want to be limited to 11mb transfer rate? If you do, I'll gladly trade you the factory card that came with my T30.

I've used the no1802 hack. It works great and is totally reversible, just unplug the AC adapter, disconnect the battery, and disconnect the CMOS battery--you get the 1802 nag again. The hardest part of installing the hack is creating a DOS boot disk with the hack on it. This is very simple if you have a floppy drive (in my opinion a floppy is a must for every machine), if not, burning a bootable CD is a little more complicated; and of course you need a CD burner. I made an autoexec batch file with on-screen messages telling what it's doing an offering a chance to exit, which I put into a self extracting .zip file that I can upload to a website for downloading. I was also going to create the same image for burning onto a CD but haven't gotten around to it.

I didn't know the alternatives were B only. I guess for the present I'll stick with my Linksys PCMCIA card. The DOS boot disk I'm sure is easy, but the only machine I've got a floppy on is an X22 (though I used to have an external USB floppy--wonder where that's got to?) and so I'd have to make a Boot CD, which I've not really done before and am too tired to worry about now. Maybe I'll wait until tomorrow and figure out what to do.

I've just spent a couple hours trying to figure out how to install wireless printing to my two USB 2.0 printers there across the room (trying AND failing, I might add), so I'm a little frustrated with the whole operation at the moment.

The wireless card (Intel Pro 2915 ABG) is one of the correct ones to use with the no1802 fix, should I decide to try it? I wasn't so clear that undoing the fix was as easy as you suggest. Thanks for the tips, though. Much appreciated.

Thanks for the tips, though. Much appreciated.

[silo]

So, as it turns out, I go out to the garage and there I find (a) an IBM dock of some sort, and (b) an IBM Thinkpad external floppy!

So I make the bootdisk by going to www.bootdisk.com and downloading the WIN95 B version, and then from some other place I get the no-1802.com and put that on the floppy, and then I boot the floppy and run the no-1802!

So then I reinstall the Intel Pro Wireless 2915 ABG (with which I have some little troubles with the MAIN and AUX "snaps" that seem to have a hard time seating to the board) and reboot, ready to wireless all night long. Works fine, no 1802 error msg, but . . .

Alas, can't get on my network because network refuses to assign a IP address. I look this up in the help and it's no help.

Turns out there's another open LAN in the neighborhood so I sign onto that and here I am asking for more help.

My LAN is LINKSYS WRT54G Broadband Router and Access Point. The Intel card is not getting the news from this LAN. It first signs on and says it has found the networks and got excellent signal quality, then sits around and a few minutes later provides the msg about "limited or no" connection because the network did not assign an IP address.

have I got a next move? Will it occur to me Wed? Can someone provide the key? Tune in tomorrow!

[LtTPfan]

At least you've now gotten rid of the nag! Maybe I should have mentioned that the easiest way to create a DOS boot diskette in XP is:
goto "My Computer">> right click on your floppy drive>> click on "Format...">> Check the box "Create MSDOS startup disk">> then click "Start." You then only need copy the no-1802.com file to the disk, boot from the floppy, and enter no-1802. (There is a version named no1802.com (vs. no-1802.com) that gives an onscreen message upon completion.)

As for your new issue. . . Have you updated your BIOS, Embedded Controller, and Access Connections (you must have v3.71 or higher according to IBM)? Did you download the latest driver for your card? Be sure to read the "additional information" on the download page as you may have to uninstall your previous driver before installing the new one. While my card is only an Intel Pro/wireless 2200bg, I believe mine started working properly once I updated the driver. I am also using a WRT54G router.

[desdinova]

Can anyone suggest a card that uses BOTH antennae that are installed?

[Kyocera]

Silo, it is not impossible for a router to be messed up from jump street, if you just bought it and hooked it up it may be bad, I had a customer hand me a Belkin wireless router he bought of Ebay for 30 bucks (this guy is a Dr. too!) to set up on his network and it would not broadcast any signal.

Go to the web page of the router and make sure DHCP is enabled, then go to the wireless properties of your laptop and make sure it is set to obtain IP address automatically. Another thing I do to test routers is to ping the router with a t switch and let it run for a while and check the ttl's, sometimes they start out strong and then you may get a time out or two, this would indicate a possible interference problem in the room or a hardware problem.
I do set up printers on networks too so maybe if you tell some of your problems I could help.

[silo]

Silo, it is not impossible for a router to be messed up from jump street, if you just bought it and hooked it up it may be bad, I had a customer hand me a Belkin wireless router he bought of Ebay for 30 bucks (this guy is a Dr. too!) to set up on his network and it would not broadcast any signal.

Go to the web page of the router and make sure DHCP is enabled, then go to the wireless properties of your laptop and make sure it is set to obtain IP address automatically. Another thing I do to test routers is to ping the router with a t switch and let it run for a while and check the ttl's, sometimes they start out strong and then you may get a time out or two, this would indicate a possible interference problem in the room or a hardware problem.
I do set up printers on networks too so maybe if you tell some of your problems I could help.

Thanks, will follow along after the game. THe router's been in place for a couple years, running fine with my desktop (wired) and three laptops (wireless), so I assume it's OK. Since I got on the net on someone else's network I figure I'll find the screw up sooner or later, but i'm a LAN near-idiot, so it may not be soon.