Cisco Aironet Wireless 802.11b

[nathan5603]

I have a T41 with the Cisco Aironet Wireless 802.11b card installed. I'm trying to find out how I can add WPA and other modes of security to the driver. Right now it only has WEP on it and my work has WPA. Do you know how to upgrade the encryption settings?

Thanks in advance,

Nathan

[Wiz]

What OS and servicepack level do you use? I assume the OS is WinXP since posted in this forum, but is it SP1, 2 or 3?
Is that the Cisco 350 mini PCI wireless adapter?
I assume you already updated the driver, what version of the driver do you use?

[nathan5603]

I'm running Windows XP with SP3. Right now I'm running driver version: 3.8.26 with firmware version: 5.41. I do not know what kind of card it is. It's built in and I tried looking for drivers on Cisco's site, but couldn't find exactly what I needed. IBM's software says it's a Cisco systems PCI wireless LAN adapter.

[Wiz]

I would suggest to replace the Cisco mini PCI adapter with something newer supported by your system like a Atheros or Intel adapter. I think Cisco stopped supporting/selling the mini PCI adapters a long time ago.

Access to download any software from Cisco is not available for the public. I could get the driver from Cisco for you and assume it's the 350 since i think this is the only mini PCI adapter created by Cisco. If this will solve the WPA problem i cannot tell for sure since i never used the Cisco mini PCI adapter.

This is the description for the download of the driver from the Cisco web:
Client Adapter Installation Wizard for Windows XP. Supports 350 Client Adapters. Includes client firmware 5.60.22, NDIS Driver 8.9/3.12, ACU 6.7, ACM 2.4.

I believe WPA should be supported by the 350 mini PCI and know for sure it's supported by the 350 pcmcia adapter.

[AIX]

WPA is supported; if you use Access Connections, you have to choose "Use Windows to Configure Wireless network" (the last option in the drop down menu) on the "(4)Wireless security type" field - then select WPA, WPA-PSK, etc.

[Wiz]

I remember a patch for XP to enable the WPA option, but unless i'm wrong this should be included in SP2 and SP3.
Another option is to use AC or the Cisco client of course if WPA is available there.

[upthereinthesky]

I don't believe that 80211b supports WPA, only WEP.
You would need to upgrade your wireless adapter to, for example, 80211g. Perhaps a USB adapter.

[AIX]

@upthereinthesky


As you can see in my signature I have a Cisco Aironet Wireless 802.11b - and I'm using it with WPA! I'm pretty sure about this. So WPA is supported.

[orck]

i just downloadedthis driver and the WPA option is now available

[mikeshoup]

The aironet cards definitely support WPA. Ensure you have the latest drivers as well as the latest supported version of Access Connections... you'll need to use AC to manage the device, but it should work.

[plook]

In my experience, using the driver at http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-42683, it was necessary to update the driver and browse to the following location in order for XP to actually update from 3.5.13 to 3.8.26:

\Drivers\WLLANCSC\PCC-MPI\XP

Using the default top-level folder (\Drivers\WLLANCSC), XP did not find an updated driver, so I searched for PCX504.sys and used the containing folder. Once updated I am able to access my router running WPA / WPA2 Personal + TKIP encryption. Previously I could only access my other router running WEP/128 encryption.

Hope this will help someone else down the line.

Cisco Systems PCI Wireless LAN (aka Cisco Mini PCI Wireless B)
IBM ThinkPad T30
Windows XP Pro SP3