orinoco firmware flashing compatibility woes

Greetings:

I have been unable to flash an Agere branded Lucent
Orinoco Gold card to firmware versions less than
Primary Variant 1, Ver 4.00, Station Variant 1, Ver 8.10;
flashers abort with error message:

"your current wireless card is not updateable with this
utility"

Labels on the card:

Orinoco wireless networks Classic Gold PC Card
T/N 38V05968 P/N 026258/A
Encryption 128RC4
Agere Systems PC24E-11-FC/R
LT: 14E0210
5V 16bit
(S/N and MAC address omitted here)

I am able to flash to Station Ver 6.16 using the 'patched'
D-link flasher, however the card no longer receives signals
(no visible networks in Win2k, no signals using
orinoco_cs drivers (patched and native) in Linux 2.4).

Attempting to flash up to Ver 7.52 for example from
Ver 6.16 fails with with above message as does attempts
to flash down from Ver 8.10. The card came with
Station firmware 9.42 (perhaps volatile using Win2k
Miniport driver in Ver 8.10).

I can repeatedly flash up to Ver 8.10 and down to
6.16 (D-link flasher only -- native flasher reports
"no wireless card driver found" and I can't find the
matching Win2k or Win9x driver anywhere on the 'Net --
in any case that shouldn't matter since the card
flashes successfully with the 'patched' flasher)

Attempts to use 'patched' D-link flashers for
versions 7.52 and 7.28 fail with error:

"no wireless card driver found"

Changing the Miniport driver to Ver 7.08 and
client to Ver 2.18 using the Ver 7.52 package
makes no difference with either flasher for the
7.52 firmware ("no wireless card drive found"
error for the 'patched' 7.52 flasher, "your current
wireless card is not updateable..." error with
the native 7.52 flasher).

Was there a hardware change that makes earlier
firmwares incompatible? If not, how does one down-flash
on this card version?

TIA and regards,

Michael

(E-Mail Removed) hath wroth:

>Was there a hardware change that makes earlier
>firmwares incompatible? If not, how does one down-flash
>on this card version?

Yes. The original Wavelan/Orinoco/Lucent/Agere/Avaya/Proxim cards
used a Lucent Hermes chipset. Later versions went with Prism 2 chips.
Symbol cards also has some chip oddities. Current Proxim versions use
Atheros chipsets. There are also variations designed to go into acess
points instead of client radios. Totally different cards with
different firmware. I'm not sure how to recognize the difference on
your Orinoco Classic. This might help.
http://www.seattlewireless.net/index...ntWirelessCard

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558