Linux newbie.
I have been reading posts concerning orinoco cards on Redhat 7.3 and 8.0 and it seems it should be much simpler than my experience has been.

I am running rehat 8 kernel 2.4.18-18.0 on a Dell Inspiron 7000 with a wired nic and the orinoco card I just got. I have tried an SMC2632W wireless card as well (The SMC works on a Toshiba 4005 CDS running RedHat 8 - both are default installs for laptops)

with just the Orinoco card, I get two beeps (the first high and the second low)
Downloaded hermes.conf and put it in /etc/pcmcia
Same results.

demsg output follows

Linux Kernel Card Services 3.1.22
options: [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:04.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 01:00.0
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:04.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:03.0
Yenta IRQ list 0690, PCI irq11
Socket status: 30000020
Yenta IRQ list 0690, PCI irq11
Socket status: 30000010
cs: cb_alloc(bus 2): vendor 0x10b7, device 0x5157
PCI: Enabling device 02:00.0 (0000 -> 0003)
3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
02:00.0: 3Com PCI 3CCFE575BT Cyclone CardBus at 0x4000. Vers LK1.1.18-ac
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 02:00.0 to 64
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth0
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x378-0x37f 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.
hermes.c: 5 Apr 2002 David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au>
orinoco.c 0.11b (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)
orinoco_cs.c 0.11b (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth1
eth1: Error -110 reading firmware info. Wildly guessing capabilities...
eth1: Station identity 0000:0000:0000:0000
eth1: Looks like an Intersil firmware version 0.00
eth1: Intersil firmware earlier than v0.08 - several features not supported
eth1: Ad-hoc demo mode supported
hermes @ IO 0x100: Error -16 issuing command.
eth1: failed to read MAC address!
Freeing alive device cccb3000, eth1
divert: freeing divert_blk for eth1
orinoco_cs: register_netdev() failed
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:08.0
maestro: Configuring ESS Maestro 2 found at IO 0xF800 IRQ 5
maestro: subvendor id: 0x00851028
maestro: not attempting power management.
maestro: AC97 Codec detected: v: 0x41445303 caps: 0x400 pwr: 0xf
maestro: 1 channels configured.
maestro: version 0.15 time 00:35:50 Nov 14 2002
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
hdc: ATAPI 24X DVD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
cdrom: This disc doesn't have any tracks I recognize!

If more info is needed let me know.

Thanks in advance!
gator

Still one happy beep then a Bonk! One of the LEDs stays on which I did not see before.

That dmesg came from an Orinoco Silver card? How old is it? It shouldn't be seeing intersil firmware... that one is just a little more than simple weird.

I had a problem similar from an orinoco silver I rescued from a fried Mac Airport, but an update to one of the firmwares in the 7s fixed it fine. Regardless, if you have a windows laptop handy, or can borrow a few minutes with one from a friend, its really easy to upgrade the firmware of the card with the utility from orinoco.

Cheers,

Finegan

The card is labeled Gold.

I updated the firmware using WSU10810.exe utility.
Client manager is reporting...
Primary Functions frmware Variant 1, Version 4.04
Station Functions firmware Variant 2, Version 8.10

Still same problem.
Sorry, I didn't look at the firmware before updating. Should I downgrade to a 7.x?

That's so strange because I'm replying using a Silver card, firmware 8.10 and the exact save rev of the orinoco driver. Maybe something is wonko kazoo that isn't letting the laptop access the firmware properly, something further up the ladder, you might want to check through the orinoco_cs mailinging lists from issues with your laptop model.

I take it since this is a dual boot you can downgrade the firmware rather easily, so take a shot at that (won't make a performance difference), and see if that changes things...

Cheers,

Finegan

The laptop is a DELL Inspiron 7000. I have read of several using the Orinoco gold card on this system with RedHat 7.2 and 7.3.

At this point I am contemplating a reinstall.

In reading dmesg it appears the first sign of a problem appears at this point.

eth1: Error -110 reading firmware info. Wildly guessing capabilities...

Am I correct, and where to go from here?

Thanks for all the help so far!

Yeah, it can't read the firmware. That is easily one of the most generic cards on the planet with one of the more generic laptops, the only thing I can think to do is downgrade the firmware and see if the kernel can initialize it.

Cheers,

Finegan

Found the solution finally searching on google.

Edit /etc/pcmcia/config.opts file and changed:

include port 0x100-x4ff, port 0x00-0xcff

to:

include port 0x300-x4ff, port 0x00-0xcff

and for good measure I added below that line:

exclude port 0x100-0x2ff

Then issue /etc/rc.d/init.d/pcmcia restart

As the original poster of the solution said "now all is happy"

Full text of solution can be found here
http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/wir...ry/000736.html

Thank Finegan for your help!