Wifi in A31....got problem.

[Excalibur418]

For a year, I used a pcmcia card with OK results. After reading a few posts I decided to go internal and chose an Atheros card which seems to be a favorite here. My card has no brand/manufacturer on it but it has a model (AR5006XS) on it. I downloaded the Linux live CD and followed the instructions. I did the no-1802 patch and then installed my card after I powered down. In the list on the CD, it only mentions Atheros Communications and not a specific model. I assume this patch applies to all Atheros'. I had just did a fresh install of XP with SP3 and it saw the card as Ethernet. I downloaded the Sparklan drivers and hoped it would work. Nope. It shows "no wireless networks found" message in Win Zero Configuration. I tried a T22 with an internal 802.11b card in it and it sees 2 or 3 connections available in the same spot. Am I doing something wrong? Ipconfig shows no media connected and this card has no MAC address printed on it at all. Under ADVANCED, it shows no MAC present although I can enter one manually by reading it off Ipconfig. Still no go. The radio show "ON" so I guess its ok. Clue this noob in please and thanks.

Ex

[MattB]

Does your machine have antennas built in?

[sjthinkpader]

Welcome to the forum.

So you ran the utility twice and got rid of the 1802 error and the "two ethernet adapters" error?

When you installed the Atheros driver, did you also install the Atheros client utility? If you did, you may want to uninstall the client utility. Then the zero utility would work.

[Excalibur418]

Thank you for the welcome... yes, I got rid of the 1802 error but I removes the Ethernet card that was in the same bay as the wifi card. I did that because I was'nt going to connect the laptop to any high speed Internet service that used a LAN connector like RoadRunner. I guess thats why I did'nt get the "too many Ethernet adapters" message. I downloaded the Atheros Client Utility and chose just to install the drivers only since Windows Zero Config was good enough for me. As for the antennas, yes I connected both wires to the card. I kept the same colors that went to the MAIN and AUX on the previous card to the Atheros one. Maybe the A31 does'nt like the AR5006XS. What about the Linux CD? Was the Atheros choice on the CD the only one for Atheros' cards? It did'nt give a specific model to choose from?

Ex

[sjthinkpader]

The driver I normally use is the ver330156 and majority of my Atheros cards are 5001X. I cannot say whether I have a 5006XS for sure.

These cards can use the IBM version of the Atheros driver but you have to force it by manual selection.

I normally use AC to configure Atheros cards.

[Excalibur418]

I forgot to ask something. After I apply the no-1802 patch, how can I tell if the patch changed the Atheros card to a WLAN device from a LAN device? Is there a way I can check or change manually?

Ex

[sjthinkpader]

When you reboot and get no error, then it had been changed correctly.