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Broadcomm Dell True Mobile 1300
Reviews Views Date of last review
4 53614 09-06-2005
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Recommended By Average Price Average Rating
100% of reviewers $30.16 7.0



Description: 802.11g mini PCI card installed in some Dell laptops. It actually is manufactured by Broadcom as the 94306. While Broadcom is not releasing enough information to write drivers, the ndiswrapper project at Sourceforge (http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/) allows Linux to use this card as if there were native drivers.

See the Broadcom section for additional information about this card
Keywords: Dell True Mobile 1300 mini pci broadcom wireless
/sbin/lspci output: 02:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation: Unknown device 4320
(rev 02)
Chipset: broadcom
Connection Type: PCI


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Old 06-11-2004, 09:45 PM   #1
jeffman12
 
Registered: Jun 2004
Distribution: Slackware 10.0
Posts: 26

Rep: Reputation:
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): None indicated | Rating: 8

Kernel (uname -r): 2.6.3-7mdk
Distribution: Mandrake 10.0



I used ndiswrapper 0.4 to get it working. Here are my steps:

1. Download ndiswrapper 0.4 (I could only get this version working, not really a problem though...)
2. Download the *.exe file for the truemobile 1300 drivers off the dell website.
3. It is best to use a windows machine to get the two driver files you need from exe you just downloaded. You need to look for bcmwl5.sys AND bcmwl5.inf. To get these files, you run the exe and tell it to extract someplace where you can get to. Then when the setup start (not the extraction) just cancel and go find the drivers. They are in a subfolder from where you extracted the files.
4. Copy those two driver files and ndiswrapper 0.4 to your linux machine.
5. Extract ndiswrapper
6. Go into the terminal, log in as root "su -" and browse to the extracted ndiswrapper files.
7. Run "make install" and let it finish
8. Browse to /usr/sbin/ and check to make sure that the program "loadndisdriver" is there. If not, copy from /utils in the ndiswrapper folder.
9. In the terminal run "modprobe ndiswrapper"
10. Run "lspci -n | grep 'Class 0280:' | awk '{print $4}'". You should get something like 14e4:4320. Write that down.
11. Run "loadndisdriver 14e4 4320 /path/to/sys/driver.sys /path/to/inf/driver.inf" Replace 14e4 4320 with what you wrote down.
EXAMPLE (what I run): "loadndiswrapper 14e4 4320 /home/jeff/Documents/bcmwl5.sys /home/jeff/Documents/bcmwl5.inf"
12. Download this FILE .
13. Extract and use "make install" to install. Refer to when you install ndiswrapper for help.
14. Run "iwconfig" and you should see wlan0 at the bottom.
15. Run "iwconfig wlan0 essid YOUR_ESSID"
16. Run "iwconfig" again and look to see if your essid is printed in the printout. If not, turn on the card by using Fn + F2 on the keyboard.
 
Old 07-28-2004, 12:51 PM   #2
rbos36
 
Registered: Jul 2004
Posts: 1

Rep: Reputation: Reputation:
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): $30.16 | Rating: 10

Kernel (uname -r): 2.6.6-1-686
Distribution: Debian testing


I bought this mini PCI card secondhand.
I did not need any of the steps above, I just installed the hardware behind the lid on the bottom of the machine, booted into Debian and the thing was automatically detected and drivers loaded.
/etc/network/interfaces required some editing to be able to actually connect to the wireless campus network.
Fast transfer speeds! Up to 400kB/sec.
 
Old 05-27-2005, 07:39 PM   #3
cevans
 
Registered: Jan 2003
Distribution: Debian (ppc and x86) with Gnome CVS HEAD
Posts: 6

Rep: Reputation: Reputation: Reputation:
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): None indicated | Rating: 2

Kernel (uname -r): 2.6.11.7 with s3_late_bios patch
Distribution: Ubuntu Hoary


Included with Dell D600. It works, but poorly. I am using ndiswrapper 1.2rc1.

* Since ndiswrapper is the driver, there is no link quality level.

* On WEP APs, the card usually requires cycling of security modes to connect to the AP.

* The card sometimes drops the connection, and freezes when the connection is brought back up.

* The card sometimes works with S3 sleep, but other times it will block on unregister_netdevice.

* Ad-hoc mode rarely works.

* ESSID and AP setting doesn't always work well. Sometimes the ESSID will not set even when wanted ESSID is detected with 'iwlist scan'.
 
Old 09-06-2005, 08:36 PM   #4
ultimatenoob
 
Registered: May 2005
Distribution: Suse 10.2
Posts: 77

Rep: Reputation: Reputation: Reputation: Reputation:
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): None indicated | Rating: 8

Kernel (uname -r): 2.6.12-1.1376_FC3
Distribution: Fedora 3


Initially had alot of problems (switched to Linux with no programming knowledge, and minimal command prompt experience) but once i figured out how to install / run ndiswrapper (and had a *very* helpful person on this forum send me the .inf and .sys files from a windows box, which i didnt have access to) everything has gone smoothly for the most part.

I have not tried to connect to any ad-hoc networks, so I can't vouch for the compatability with those, and I only use wireless at free hotspots, so I cannot say anything about the speed of the connection.

I also had a problem with a pervious kernel (2.6.12-1.1372_FC3 i believe) that was very strange; it would not recognize the card no matter what i did [reinstall ndiswrapper, extract + rewrite the module, etc etc etc!] so whenever i was going to use wireless I would boot up the older kernel. Thankfully the kernel i'm running now does not have that problem!
 




  



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