A bent Orinoco WiFi Card...

[wally]

Bought a $1 Orinoco Silver PC24E-H-FC 802.11b WiFi PC Card at a local recycling center, in slightly bent condition. Photo of damage at

The previous owner appears to have had it inserted in a laptop when it got hit, bending the antenna section with ugly results. It straightened out pretty good after some careful bending by hand, and the application of various miniature hand tools to iron out the sheet metal. The PC board inside is quite thin and flexible and appears not to have popped any parts. See

and other photos in the photostream for the after repairs condition. And best of all, it works! And thank you, alk for the website driver download of version 7.2.

 

[Byrd]

Nice score!

Could you tell me where you got the Orinoco driver from? I just found this link, but haven't tried it yet:

http://www.sst23.com/orinoco.smi.zip

Also picked up two Orinoco Gold cards on eBay for $18 each. I've tried the Airport hack (using a PB2400c with OS 9.1, Cardbus hack) but it freezes every time I enter a WEP password. Seems OK other than that. I suspect it's because Cardbus is a bit iffy on the 2400c with 9.1, I tried 8.6 but the same thing happened.

JB

 

[LCGuy]

Nice score! Can't beat a working WiFi card for a buck...i can't find one for love nor money!

 

[wally]

Nice score!
Could you tell me where you got the Orinoco driver from?...

I just Google searched Orinoco 7.2, got a link to alk's site, and downloaded it from there. The driver seems to want Appletalk on initially so you can get to the point of specifying TCP/IP only later. I have used it in unencrypted mode only to this point.

 

[Bunsen]

You have to insert a special character at the begining of the WEP key to show that it's a hexadecimal number, a ? or a # or something.

 

[wally]

Bunsen, thanks for the tip, I got it also by doing some net searching on problems others had encountered. I'm not using Airport and have no experience to add for Byrd, but a similar caution applies for users of the Orinoco 7.2 driver. The magic prefix is 0x followed by the hex, if you use the Orinoco Setup Assistant you get this coaching but otherwise you get lured into just putting in the hex which gets you nowhere.

Several days ago I tested and got 64 bit encryption going on the Orinoco Silver with 7.2 driver running under 8.6 on a PB1400c/117, after a bit of a struggle. Initially it would connect to the Internet without encryption, no problems. It would accept an encryption key (see Setup Assistant for the rules on ASCII vs Hex) and see a closed network with hidden SSID, but TCP/IP would fail to connect upon the first browser activation. Getting the hex password in was allowing the Orinoco to see my SSID beacon suppressed router but was not quite enough. Removing other already deactivated TCP/IP suspects like Global Village Ethernet PC card software and Proxim Skyline Wireless did not help, nor did pulling the deactivated extensions and control panels out of the System Folder altogether. Finally I ran the Proxim uninstaller, the Orinico uninstaller, rebooted 8.6, reinstalled Orinoco 7.2, rebooted: encrypted connection works! At least I did not have to reinstall 8.6!

I have seen similar problems before but do not know the general rule. Some of my PC Card drivers interfere with the use of some others, and have to be uninstalled before the other can be successfully installed. I call them "slot hogs". I recall finding a support note on the PC Card manager and its limitations but have lost track...

I really like using the Proxim or Farallon (I have both) Skyline 802.11b PN473 wireless cards better because they can be more freely inserted and removed without requiring explicit shutdown or restarts. But I will say that I really like the responsive signal strength meter of the Orinoco; the Skyline meter is a dud in comparison. The Skyline cards are really under-publicised in the various mac forums but they otherwise work great. It is unfortunate that the 802.11a Skylines for sale can easily confuse the unwary buyer. I am looking forwards to doing some interesting antenna experiments now that I have my first card with an external antenna connector.

 

[Byrd]

You have to insert a special character at the begining of the WEP key to show that it's a hexadecimal number, a ? or a # or something.

Sorry B is that with the Airport software, or the Orinoco software?

Thanks to wally I now have the Gold card detected fine under OS 9.1, see my wireless network but only seems to support WAP, not WEP. Or am I missing something here?

JB

 

[wally]

I get a little confused due to the Lucent/Proxim swallowing brands and relabelling thing, the ambiguous use of Gold and Silver on many, many different models and the WEP/WPA thing. Life is simpler for me since I only have silver/WEP, 40 or 64 bit depending on how you count. Try http://www.proxim.com/learn/library/whitepapers/WPA_White_Paper.pdf and look for the notion of a configuration utility that programs the card to accept WAP connections only as opposed to promiscuous mode. I am beginning to suspect your gold card has modal memory and has been programmed to be selective until undone by utility reconfiguration.