802.11b WPA/mps issues

[AEN007]

11Apr2008
Greetings.
I have a T30 with an internal mini Cisco 802.11b card.

At first I had no option to connect using WPA.
I updated the 802.11b driver (twice).
I now have the Cisco Aironet Client
and the option to use WPA-TKIP,
but I do not have the option to use WPA-AES.
This has been a problem once so far.
Anyone have any experience/knowlege with this issue?

Under the Cisco Utility Aironet Client I have no option
for connection speeds greater than 11mps.
It seems to me I should be able set
connection speeds up to 54mps.
Anyone have any experience/knowlege with this issue?

Any insights appreciated.
Thanks.
Regards,
AEN
Æ

[truk]

Okay, the 11mbps is in the hardware of your card. With wireless b cards, the max speed is 11mbps no matter what the speed of the access point is. As for aes, I think that is a problem in your software not a hardware incompatibility, but I'm not sure. If you use the windows utility you may be able to get it.

[Merlin Witt]

Assuming you are running WINXPSPK2, there is a MS update. Search for WPA update and you should find KB893357-v2-x86-ENU for the English language version. It includes WPA2-PSK. It will NOT improve your speed (that is a hardware issue with your card). If you change your cad you will probably loose some functionality, or run into the 1802 error. I purchased a couple of BROADCOM cards for my T23 and R31 for less than $10.00 on Ebay, added the update and I have both wired LAN and wireless capability.

[AEN007]

24April2008

Greetings.
Thanks for the replies.

I already have both WPA & WPA-PSK.
My other laptop with a 802.11g card
has both AES & TKIP as selections under WPA,
but my T30 only has TKIP - no AES.
I wonder if an 802.11b card cannot use AES?
Does anyone have any knowledge/experience
with this issue? Does anyone have an 802.11b
card with WPA-AES? Is there another driver/firmware
combo that allows an 802.11b card to use AES?

Any insights appreciated.
Thanks.
Regards,
AEN
Æ

[Merlin Witt]

If your T30 supports TKIP, you may be able to find a new driver from your card manufacturer that supports AES. Both TKIP and AES can be done in firmware.
But, due to the complexity of the mathematical computations used in AES, many manufacturers add hardware to the card just to support AES.

I upgraded the firmware in my wireless router about two years ago and it now supports both TKIP and AES . Not one of the five wireless adapters in my system supported AES without a firmware upgrade.

Merlin

[AEN007]

9May2008

Greetings.

How can I remove the miniPCI card from WinXP
without removing the card from the T30?
If I "uninstall" the card, WinXP "finds" &
reinstalls the card every reboot.
I should not disable the XP Plug & Play service.
I do not want to always have
the disabled miniPCI icon
in my Network Connections window ...

I stumbled across a brand new
(newly on the market too)
54mbps 802.11b/g PCMCIA card
for only 9.99. The driver utility even
has both TKIP & AES WPA options.
So, this card really compliments/augments
my existing setup. I actually use the new
card in the ancient Toshiba & my older
54mbps PCMCIA card in the T30.
So I now have 54mbps & AES in the T30.
The older card conflicts with one of my
pcmcia ethernet cards in the Toshiba,
but the new card does not.

Regarding the T30 PCMCIA slots -
one can almost never use two Type II cards.
One can not fit both a USB 2.0 Type II card
and a Type II ethernet card, for example.
On my Toshiba, however, I can nicely fit
a Wireless pcmcia card in the bottom
and an ethernet card in the top slot.
The T30 slots are seemingly not spaced
the same as on the Toshiba.
The wireless card in the bottom slot
pushes up against the USB 2.0 card
in the top slot ...
both cards are now curved ...

Any insights appreciated.
Thank you.
Regards,
AEN
Æ

[RealBlackStuff]

You can get PCMCIA cards with dongles, they are flat, and 2 will fit in the slot-space.

[AEN007]

9May2008

Greetings.
Yes, I know they exist, but I have not
seen a single one of them
for sale online anywhere
nor in any shops ...
It seems rather difficult to find even one ...

AEN
Æ

[Merlin Witt]

Have you tried to disable the card rather than un-installing it?

To disable the card you should either right click on "MY COMPUTER" or open Control Panel and open System.
That will pop-up a new window named System Properties. You should then select Hardware followed by Device Manager.
Under Device Manager you will find Network Adapters. Click on Network Adapters, locate the device you want to disable, right click on the device and select disable.
Windows XP will no longer attempt to use this device.
It will no longer work until you enable it again.
You can enable the device by right clicking and choosing enable instead of disable.

Good Luck
Merlin

[AEN007]

11May2008

Greetings.
Thanks for the reply.
Disabling does not remove the icon
from the NWC config in WinXP.
As I said below, I do not want to
always have the disabled miniPCI icon
in my Network Connections window ...
I do not want the miniPCI icon in NWC
anymore because I will not use it.
This is one too many NWC icons
for my AutoHotKey (AHK) scripts &
other configuration settings.
My scripts/configs handle between
one and three NWC icons.
I do not want to have to remove the card.

Under WinME uninstalling something
from a hardware profile/config
removes the item until the user
reinstalls the item. WinME does not
have the Plug&Play service that XP does.
WinME finds the uninstalled but not
removed item when Add Hardware is run;
however, the user can tell WinME
to not reinstall the item. XP P&P finds &
installs (even if disabled) the PCI card.

For the time being I have modified
my AHK startup script to uninstall
the PCI card every reboot
(when I choose run full startup script).
I'll post this topic in other forums
at other websites. If I find the answer
somehow/where, maybe I'll post
the resolution here as well ...

Any insights appreciated.
Thank you.
Regards,
AEN
Æ

[Merlin Witt]

If you want to remove JUST the ICON from NWC, you will have to make changes to the registry in three different places.
The places are all in the HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet area. In order to do this correctly, you need to open Regedit32 (Windows/System32/Regedit32) and do a search for the EXACT name as it is displayed in NWC.
You should find that EXACT name in three different places. One under ControlSet001/Control/Network/and a pair of registry Keys (numbers). A second one under ControlSet002/Control/Network/and a pair of registry Keys (numbers).
And the third one under CurrentControlSetControl/Network/and a pair of registry Keys (numbers).
The last item in each of these areas is ShowIcon with a value of (1).
When you right click on ShowIcon and select Modify a new window will pop-up showing a hexadecimal 1. If you change this value to zero (0) in all three areas, the Icon will no longer appear in NWC. After you reboot the computer.
You will still need to disable the hardware to keep XP from finding it again and creating a NEW instance of the device and a new Icon for the device when you re-boot.

AS always editing the Registry can be hazardous to the health of your operating system and only you are responsible for the result.

I hope this answers your question.
Merlin

[AEN007]

14May2008

Greetings.
Thanks for the reply/suggestion.
I thought for sure you had given me
the/a solution, but changing show icon
from 1 to 0 has had no effect.
Have you tried this?
I already use ERUnt several times a week.
Editing the registry was no big deal.
I decided to drop my fix of having
my AHK startup script uninstall the card
every reboot - because each time XP
reinstalls the card, XP creates a new reg entry.
I deleted 17 Wireless Network Connection entries.
So now there is only one WNC in the reg
& not WNC 1 through WNC 17 ...

I decided to go ahead & modify my scripts/setup
to accomodate more than three NWC icons ...

Someone else in another forum suggested
disabling the card in the BIOS. That was complicated
because the BIOS listed 8 unlabeld IRQs.
I found & disabled the IRQ for the miniPCI/modem
combo, but unbelievably XP still finds & reinstalls
the card. Annoying ...

I still hope to find out how one might do this.

Any insights appreciated.
Thank you.
Regards,
AEN
Æ

[Merlin Witt]

After doing this on three pc's, I am not sure. Two of the PC's are laptops, one an R31 with XP Pro, the other one is a T22 with XP Home. Neither of the laptops removed the Icon. The first computer (a desktop with XP Pro) worked on the first re-boot. It did not work on the second re-boot.

I tried re-naming the ShowIcon to DoNotShowIcon. I removed the ShowIcon key. I renamed the NAME from Local Area Connection to something else a couple of times (Blank once and 1 the second time). But an Icon would always appear in NWC. So I am not sure what is going on. I have not installed SPK3 yet. Once I do, I will try this again. Changing the ShowIcon to 0 should make the Icon go away IF the device it is supporting is disabled in Windows.

Windows XP and Vista are much better at directly accessing the hardware and CMOS BIOS settings than previous versions of MS products. They are also MUCH better at modifying the shadowed BIOS settings then any of the previous versions. A device that is disabled in Windows Device Manager will not be re-initiated or re-installed, but a device that is disabled in the CMOS BIOS will be re-initiated AND Windows will make an attempt to re-install the device every time Windows is started. Sometimes the BIOS disabled device gets re-installed no matter what you do, other times you are notified of the changed device and given a chance to install it. I have not determined what causes the different behavior. I am just sure that I have seen this happen on many PCs.

Merlin

[RealBlackStuff]

I think you are looking for an "Eier-legender Woll-Milch-Sau"

[AEN007]

23May2008

Greetings.

Regarding WPA-AES & my Cisco miniPCI card -
I received the following reply from Cisco»

"I've confirmed with the engineering team that
the 350/CB20A does not and cannot support AES."

For what it is worth ...