Norm - you're a frickin' genius! I doubt anyone will
remember this as your post was almost 6 months old. But
using your instructions, I got my MA401 card to work
with my WPA security. There was one change I had to
make - I first changed to the Linksys WPC11 drivers like
you suggested, but Winupdate reported block write errors
(my card is 800C based). I tried changing back to the
Netgear drivers that came with the card, and then
Winupdate updated the firmware like it was supposed to,
and everything else followed your step by step
instructions, and my MA401 is now happily authenticating
to my WPA network. In fact, it's even working more
solid than it was with the OEM drivers.
Thanks!
I've just succeeded in getting a couple of Netgear MA401
PCMCIA
wireless adapters to work under Windows XP using WPA
(WPA-PSK in my
case). I thought it might be helpful to others to
outline the
step-by-step procedure for doing this since the Netgear
drivers and
firmware don't support WPA at all and I searched for
quite a while to
find a solution. The usual warnings apply: don't do
this if you're
not comfortable with any part of the process and I'm not
responsible
if you accidentally turn your MA401 into a Christmas
tree ornament.
The process (in brief) is:
- install Linksys WPC11 drivers
- use Intersil's WinUpdate to update the card firmware
- install the WPA hotfix for Windows XP
- install WPA-enabled drivers
It's common knowledge that the MA401 uses the Intersil
Prism II
chipset. Most of the information on updating the
firmware I got from
http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism/ (this is an
excellent page and
also outlines how to do this under Linux)
Things you'll need:
WinUpdate - this is Intersil's Windows utility for
updating the
firmware on Prism II-based cards. I got it from
http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism/WinUpdate-0-7-
0.exe but it can
be found in a few places.
Firmware files - there are two files you need, a primary
and a station
firmware file. I got them from
http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism/firmware/1.7.4/
but Jun Sun's
page lists several other sources. Although there are
multiple firmware
files, the ones I needed to update my cards were:
pk010101.hex - this is primary firmware version 1.1.1
sf010704.hex - this is station firmware version 1.7.4
Drivers for the Linksys WPC11 v2.5 from the Linksys
website. I had to
install these drivers instead of the Netgear drivers to
get WinUpdate
to communicate with the card properly during the
firmware upgrade.
Step-by-Step:
I'm assuming you already have the Netgear card and its
drivers
installed. You need to go to Device Manager, right-
click the Netgear
card, choose Update driver, choose "Install from a list
or specific
location", select "Don't search. I will choose the
driver to install",
click Have Disk and browse to where you extracted the
WPC11 drivers.
In the WPC driver setup files there's a WinXP directory
with a
LSWLNDS.INF file that you should select. You should see
"Instant
Wireless Network PC Card V2.5" listed as the driver to
install. When
you continue with the driver install, you may get a
message saying
that the install process is going to update the firmware
on your card.
Click Cancel when that message appears and close the
Linksys firmware
update utility if it opens. When the new driver is
installed you'll
be able to run WinUpdate and update the firmware.
Download and install WinUpdate. Open WinUpdate from the
Start menu
under Prism Test Utilities. It should list the "Instant
Wireless
Network PC Card V2.5" under Valid Adapters and will
probably have
selected the adapter automatically. If not, highlight
it and click
Open Adapter. In the bottom part of the window, click
the Add File
button and select the primary firmware file (in this
case called
pk010101.hex) and then repeat the same process to add
the station
firmware file (called sf010704.hex). You should now see
both files
listed in the window with a small P and S icon beside
each file.
Confirm that the versions (1.1.1 and 1.7.4) show up
correctly and then
click Continue. WinUpdate will do some quick checks to
make sure the
firmware and your card match. If you get any strange
errors here make
sure you stop and resolve them before continuing. I got
errors at
this point before using the Linksys drivers, so make
sure you've done
that. If WinUpdate doesn't find any problems you'll see
an Update
Information window that lists information about your
card like it's
Platform, MAC Address and current firmware revisions.
Below that will
be the paths to the new firmware files. If it all looks
okay, click
on the Update button and the firmware will be updated.
You'll see two
windows, one after the other, that say "Flash Update in
progress..."
and when they are both gone you should see a message
that says "Update
successful". To confirm that you card has been updated,
go to the
Tools menu and select Query Firmware Version. You
should see primary
firmware at 1.1.1 and station firmware at 1.7.4.
In order to use WPA with Windows XP you need a hotfix
from Microsoft
or you need Service Pack 2 installed. The hotfix is
called "Windows
XP Support Patch for Wi-Fi Protected Access" and I got
it from here:
http://microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=
009D8425-CE2B-47A4-ABEC-274845DC9E91&displaylang=en
Install the hotfix (it doesn't require a reboot in my
experience).
The last step is getting WPA-enabled drivers for Prism-
based cards. I
found several but the ones I'm using are for the NetGate
NL-2511CD
PLUS wireless card described here:
http://www.netgate.com/EL2511.html
The drivers themselves are here:
http://www.netgate.com/support/Drivers/V%5B1%5D.802.zip
Run the DriverSetup802.exe installer from that download
and it should
install the drivers and .inf files needed. As with the
Linksys
drivers, you'll have to go through the manual
installation and point
to the driver you want to use. Instead of clicking on
"Have Disk"
simply uncheck "show compatible hardware" and scroll the
manufacturer
list to "IEEE 802.11b" and click on it. Select "IEEE
802.11b WLAN
network adapter PC Card". After the drivers are
installed, it's
probably a good idea to restart the computer.
After a restart you should be able to open the Windows
Zero
Configuration utility (through "View Available Wireless
Networks" from
the system tray icon for your adapter) and select WPA-
PSK or WPA from
the Network Authentication menu and TKIP from the Data
encryption
menu.
snip
Norm
..
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