Keebox Wireless-N USB dongle (Ralink RT3070L chipset) crash

[kidpub]

While I'm waiting for an Atheros-based board to arrive to replace my T60p's internal wifi I ran across a tiny Keebox USB dongle that I thought might be useful. Right now I'm using a Netgear WG111v3 dongle that works fine but it's quite large...the Keebox is similar in size to the 'nano' USB mouse receivers.

The device uses the Ralink 3070L chipset, and there are drivers and a connection utility available on the Ralink web site. The Keebox doesn't come with OS/X drivers. The drivers load fine after updating Info.plist in the kext and running pfix.

The problem is with the connection utility. When launched, it scans the network and finds the local APs, however when you try to connect to one the utility crashes with a seg fault.

Here's the thing that has me scratching my head. From the Guest account, everything works just fine.

I'm guessing it's a permissions issue, but why would Guest be able to run something that an admin account can't? Or maybe Guest is looking down a different search path for libraries and executables?

Any ideas?

Perry

[kidpub]

In the time-honored tradition of fixing the problem just moments after posting a question, here's what I did to get the Keebox running. The thing is just $15 for a tiny wireless-N adaptor...I was determined!

I logged on as Guest, ran the Ralink Wireless Utility, and set up a profile / key for the wireless network. The profiles are kept in ~/Library/Preferences/com.Ralink.RaConfig.plist. I saved this file off in /tmp, logged off of Guest, and logged back in as a normal user. I verified that the plist held the profile with TextWrangler, then copied the plist from /tmp to my own /S/L/Preferences directory, and launched the Ralink Wireless Utility. The profile for the local network appeared and I was able to connect. On subsequent boots the utility runs and automatically connects to the profile.

I'll still swap in the Atheros card when it arrives, but in the meantime the 'nano' wireless adapter works just fine.

Perry

[kidpub]

And the happy ending, the Atheros board arrived today. It took about ten minutes to open up the T60p and replace the Intel 3945 with the Atheros. I purchased the card on Amazon from gotlux.com for $14: http://www.amazon.com/IBM-ThinkPad-Z61T ... B002N7APQW. It's the 39T5578, FRU T60H921.05.

If you haven't found them, there are some good videos on assembly and disassembly at the Lenovo site: ww-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/docu ... MIGR-63959

The PCI ID for this card is 168c,1014. I used a Linux CD to get to a console and ran lspci -n to get the ID. Add the string to /S/L/E/IO80211Family.kext/Plugins/AirportAtheros21.kext/Info.plist, in the Atheros dictionary:

Code: Select all

<string>pci168c,1014</string>

Run pfix to fix permissions and rebuild the kext cache. At reboot you should see an AirPort symbol on the status bar...from there you can create a new network device and set up the WLAN. The new device will be an AirPort.

Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences here in the forum.

I think now that everything is functional on the T60p, except for the fingerprint reader :^)

Perry

[Sebinouse]

I think now that everything is functional on the T60p, except for the fingerprint reader :^)

Did you tried la suite protector : http://www.upek.com/mac/download/ ? (Worked fine on my X60t)

[kidpub]

Did you tried la suite protector : http://www.upek.com/mac/download/ ? (Worked fine on my X60t)

Thanks for the pointer, so to speak. It works a treat on the T60p!

Perry