Death of a Linksys WPC11 "Instant Wireless Network PC Card"

I've been happily using a Linksys WPC11 "Instant Wireless Network PC Card
(Version 3)" (based on the Prism 2.5 [?] chipset) for the last few days,
but now it seems to have died a peculiar death. When I insert the card,
the little icon in the Windows 2000 system tray doesn't turn into the
little wireless status indicator, but instead shows a "broken network"
icon with the tooltip "Network cable unplugged." The command "ipconfig
/all" shows this status:

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 3:
Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Cable Disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Instant Wireless Network PC Card V3.0
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : [correct MAC address]

Hmmm. Cable disconnected? Wireless adapter? What's going on?

Meanwhile, the card sits there with the "power" LED illuminated and the
"Link" LED either blinking steadily (regularly) or not illuminated at all.

Any ideas?

Oddly this problem began when I booted Linux with the card inserted and
did "modprobe hermes" to try loading that Prism 2 pc-card driver. But the
card was never activated (led's never went on), so this happening might be
some kind of odd coincidence.

Tobin

Are you sure your router is up and running? It sounds like it's just saying
that there is no network available. The facts that power and link leds are
on, and ipconfig sees the card, mean that it is properly activated on the
cardbus.

Windows drivers make wifi adapters look like Ethernet. On XP, ipconfig says
"media disconnected" if there is no network available, whether it's an
unplugged Ethernet cable or a wireless adapter with no network available to
connect to. Maybe W2K says "cable unplugged", since they both look like
Ethernet.

"Tobin Fricke" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) .Berkeley.EDU...
> I've been happily using a Linksys WPC11 "Instant Wireless Network PC Card
> (Version 3)" (based on the Prism 2.5 [?] chipset) for the last few days,
> but now it seems to have died a peculiar death. When I insert the card,
> the little icon in the Windows 2000 system tray doesn't turn into the
> little wireless status indicator, but instead shows a "broken network"
> icon with the tooltip "Network cable unplugged." The command "ipconfig
> /all" shows this status:
>
> Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 3:
> Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Cable Disconnected
> Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Instant Wireless Network PC
Card V3.0
> Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : [correct MAC address]
>
> Hmmm. Cable disconnected? Wireless adapter? What's going on?
>
> Meanwhile, the card sits there with the "power" LED illuminated and the
> "Link" LED either blinking steadily (regularly) or not illuminated at all.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Oddly this problem began when I booted Linux with the card inserted and
> did "modprobe hermes" to try loading that Prism 2 pc-card driver. But the
> card was never activated (led's never went on), so this happening might be
> some kind of odd coincidence.
>
> Tobin
>

On Sun, 2 Nov 2003, gary wrote:

> Are you sure your router is up and running? It sounds like it's just saying
> that there is no network available. The facts that power and link leds are
> on, and ipconfig sees the card, mean that it is properly activated on the
> cardbus.

It sure is.. other machines access the wireless network without problem.
And this other generic 802.11b card works fine too. When I reinsert the
problematic Linksys card, sometimes I get the tell-tale little yellow
exclamation point by the card in the removable hardware listing, with
Windows complaining that it "can't load the driver." But that doesn't
always happen.

> Windows drivers make wifi adapters look like Ethernet. On XP, ipconfig says
> "media disconnected" if there is no network available, whether it's an
> unplugged Ethernet cable or a wireless adapter with no network available to
> connect to. Maybe W2K says "cable unplugged", since they both look like
> Ethernet.

Yeah, that sounds likely... Netstumbler with the NDIS driver complains
about there being a problem with the device, but with the Prism2 driver it
appears to function.. but it sees only an AP called "linksys" (not ours).
The card is definitely confused... I reflashed, but the symptoms remain
the same.

Tobin

Have you checked the error log for diagnostics? It's beginning to sound like
the card is broken. This is a real longshot suggestion, but how sure are you
that the Linux driver you were trying to run was compatible with this card?
Is it possible that incorrect firmware was downloaded to the card?

Here's an excerpt from a thread I found entitled "WPC11 V.4 Card Not
Showing Up":

(URL
:http://www.freenetworks.org/pipermai...mber/000337.ht
ml)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
Linksys has a real bad habbit of making major hardware changes while
maintaining a product name, but without updating information about their
products on their website. I have heard several horror stories, including
people flashing devices with improper firmware. As a personal example, I
bought a WMP11 card specifically because it was supported under a variety of
operating systems (including linux) only to discover they had changed to a
completely different chipset. Their web page did not reflect the change for
months after the change had taken place and none of the drivers that you
could download from their page would recognize the card. The only drivers
available were the ones that came on the cd, and they were extremely
alphaish drivers (kept on dropping wireless settings, problems associating
even with linksys AP's, drivers suddenly becoming "uninstalled"). Be very
very sure of what you are buying before you buy a linksys product.

-Daniel Marsh
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------



"Tobin Fricke" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Pine.SOL.4.58.0311012031290.21885@apocalypse. OCF.Berkeley.EDU...
> On Sun, 2 Nov 2003, gary wrote:
>
> > Are you sure your router is up and running? It sounds like it's just
saying
> > that there is no network available. The facts that power and link leds
are
> > on, and ipconfig sees the card, mean that it is properly activated on
the
> > cardbus.
>
> It sure is.. other machines access the wireless network without problem.
> And this other generic 802.11b card works fine too. When I reinsert the
> problematic Linksys card, sometimes I get the tell-tale little yellow
> exclamation point by the card in the removable hardware listing, with
> Windows complaining that it "can't load the driver." But that doesn't
> always happen.
>
> > Windows drivers make wifi adapters look like Ethernet. On XP, ipconfig
says
> > "media disconnected" if there is no network available, whether it's an
> > unplugged Ethernet cable or a wireless adapter with no network available
to
> > connect to. Maybe W2K says "cable unplugged", since they both look like
> > Ethernet.
>
> Yeah, that sounds likely... Netstumbler with the NDIS driver complains
> about there being a problem with the device, but with the Prism2 driver it
> appears to function.. but it sees only an AP called "linksys" (not ours).
> The card is definitely confused... I reflashed, but the symptoms remain
> the same.
>
> Tobin
>

Check out John's post (11/2/03). His WPC11 just seemed to quit after normal
use. If I were you I'd be camping out on tech support's doorstep, or maybe
I'd just ask for my money back.

"Tobin Fricke" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) .Berkeley.EDU...
> I've been happily using a Linksys WPC11 "Instant Wireless Network PC Card
> (Version 3)" (based on the Prism 2.5 [?] chipset) for the last few days,
> but now it seems to have died a peculiar death. When I insert the card,
> the little icon in the Windows 2000 system tray doesn't turn into the
> little wireless status indicator, but instead shows a "broken network"
> icon with the tooltip "Network cable unplugged." The command "ipconfig
> /all" shows this status:
>
> Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 3:
> Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Cable Disconnected
> Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Instant Wireless Network PC
Card V3.0
> Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : [correct MAC address]
>
> Hmmm. Cable disconnected? Wireless adapter? What's going on?
>
> Meanwhile, the card sits there with the "power" LED illuminated and the
> "Link" LED either blinking steadily (regularly) or not illuminated at all.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Oddly this problem began when I booted Linux with the card inserted and
> did "modprobe hermes" to try loading that Prism 2 pc-card driver. But the
> card was never activated (led's never went on), so this happening might be
> some kind of odd coincidence.
>
> Tobin
>