Greetings all,

I've been having trouble getting a DWL-650 wireless LAN card to work in Mandrake 9.1 on an IBM Thinkpad i-1300 series. This particular wireless card is a revision P card, which is apparently the newest version of this card. I contacted Technical Support at D-link and they said that the card uses a Prism 3 chipset. (I had feared that they had completely changed the chipset to something like Realtek.)

I've tried using wlan-ng to get the card up and running, but to no avail. I put the appropriate entry in /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf (derived from cardctl info); the entry I put in is listed below:

card "D-Link DWL-650 Wireless PC Card RevP ISL37101P-10 A3"
version "D-Link", "DWL-650 Wireless PC Card RevP", "ISL37101P-10", "A3"
manfid 0x000b, 0x7110
bind "prism2_cs"

This is what I get from dmesg concerning the card:

. . .

cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x2c8-0x2cf 0x3b8-0x3df 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.
init_module: prism2_cs.o: 0.1.16-pre5 Loaded
init_module: dev_info is: prism2_cs
prism2_cs: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 3, io 0x0100-0x017f
hfa384x_docmd_wait: hfa384x_cmd timeout(2), reg=0x0.
hfa384x_drvr_start: Initialize command failed.
hfa384x_drvr_start: Failed, result=-110
prism2sta_ifstate: hfa384x_drvr_start() failed,result=-110

. . .

Whenever I issue /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng restart wlan0, I get the following:

SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such device

I can issue /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng start wlan0 and I get something a little different:

Failed to enable the device, resultcode= implementation_failure .

Is there something I am failing to do here? This is the first time I've ever dealt with WLAN cards. I have the card working in Win98SE so the card does work. I've tried Orinoco drivers and they didn't work. Could this be a problem with the firmware of the card? Is there some setting I have to set on the card itself? I'm totally stumped.

I don't want to have to take this card back to the store. Does anyone have any clues on how to get this card up and running?

Thanks for taking the time to read and reply!

Thank you,

Kevin

Just purchased exactly the same card, and am trying to get it to work on SuSE 8.2 (pcmcia 3.2.3-47). On first insert, I got:

cardmgr: unsupported card in socket 1
cardmgr: product info: "D-Link", "DWL-650 Wireless PC Card RevP", "ISL37101P-10", "A3"
cardmgr: manfid: 0x000b, 0x7110 function: 6 (network)

After creating a new file /etc/pcmcia/dlink.conf containing the following:

device "orinoco_cs"
class "network" module "hermes", "orinoco", "orinoco_cs"

card "DLink DWL-650 802.11b Wireless PC Card"
manfid 0x000b, 0x7110
bind "orinoco_cs"

and restarting PCMCIA services, it now recognizes the card and loads the drivers, but finishes with:

kernel: hermes @ IO 0x400: Timeout waiting for card to reset (reg=0x0000)!
kernel: eth1: failed to reset hardware (err = -110)
kernel: orinoco_cs: register_netdev() failed
cardmgr: get dev info on socket 1 failed: No such device

Also I should mention this is with the external (non-kernel) PCMCIA drivers. SuSE says these have wider hardware coverage, but where they overlap aren't as current as the in-kernel drivers.

The reason I'm running the external PCMCIA drivers is the default SuSE scripts don't support loading multiple PCMCIA bridge drivers (PCICs), and this laptop has two: one for external PCMCIA (TI1131) and one for internal (Cirrus PD672x). With them I need both yenta_socket and i82365, but with the external PCMCIA drivers I don't: i82365 seems to be sufficient.

Still researching. This is my first laptop install so I'm a little green. I've got both PCMCIA bridges and the internal (wired) PCMCIA ethernet working, so if I can just get a wireless card talking I'll be set.

Any and all suggestions appreciated!

I just tried the kernel prism2_cs drivers as you did with this /etc/pcmcia/dlink.conf:

device "prism2_cs"
class "wlan-ng" module "p80211", "prism2_cs"

card "DLink DWL-650 802.11b Wireless PC Card"
version "D-Link", "DWL-650 Wireless PC Card RevP", "ISL37101P-10", "A3"
manfid 0x000b, 0x7110
bind "prism2_cs"

and on insert, I got a wlan0 device but also these errors in the log:

cardmgr: executing: './wlan-ng start wlan0'
kernel: hfa384x_docmd_wait: hfa384x_cmd timeout(2), reg=0x0.
kernel: hfa384x_drvr_start: Initialize command failed.
kernel: hfa384x_drvr_start: Failed, result=-110
kernel: prism2sta_ifstate: hfa384x_drvr_start() failed,result=-110
cardmgr: + Failed to enable the device, resultcode= implementation_failure .
cardmgr: + wlanctl-ng: No such device
cardmgr: + Scan failed (implementation_failure)
cardmgr: + network not found. maybe start IBSS?

I'm trying to rebuild the external wlan drivers now so I can give them a shot (apparently the wlan drivers aren't link compatible with the default kernel).

Hello Dark Helmet,

So far I've been getting similar results to what you are getting. As per my post in this forum:


http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...465#post621465

I talked to someone at D-link tech support and they said that my best bet is to have the latest version of linux-wlan installed. That will probably be my next course of action. I don't know how much that will help, but I'm not ready to give up yet.

Thanks for your reply; we'll just keep chugging away.

Kevin

Ok, will do.

Doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know, but just FYI:
http://support.dlink.com/products/DWL650.asp
http://support.dlink.com/products/vi...d=DWL-650_revP
http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.asp?prod_id=357
http://support.dlink.com/supportfaq/

Interesting that they link to the WLAN drivers for Linux support, explicitly for our DWL-650 rev P version. Let me know if that fixes yours, and if so I'll update too.
Back to research...

The best thing I can suggest is a bit of media blitz on trying to figure out if anyone else has this card.

The only other diagnosis of figuring out the chipset would come from battering the thing from the windows side. It may just be a drastically newer firmware of the old prism series, but that should have at least initialized. If you've got the gear available, you might want to take a look at the entire driver package that came with it... heck, if you could compare what they shipped on the CD with what's available for download from D-Link that might just do it.

I'm willing to bet that this is actually something new and D-link's tech support has no idea what they're shipping now. I hope I'm wrong by the way.

I checked the mailing lists of the orinoco project (I'm actually subscribed, but I wanted to make sure), the host_ap driver, and the linux-wlan, and there's no mention of a RevP, and its very common for them to have the entire ident line in the mails... so, I'm a bit perplexed. You may want to subscribe and mail in your info, first of course download and compile and try the host_ap module set... which actually seems to be the best written for these cards, (the orinoco_cs module was re-built to accomodate for them too, it gets dodgy on the newest firmwares)

Orinoco (users, not devel):
http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=44338

HostAP:
http://lists.shmoo.com/mailman/listinfo/hostap

Linux-Wlan-ng:
http://lists.linux-wlan.com/

Cheers,

Finegan

Thanks for the research, finigen. I too am coming up with no search hits on this.

Since this is for some non-technical Linux relatives of mine and not me, I think I'm going to punt this card and go garage saling. Picked up four cards at the store this week and all four are either not supported or require bleeding edge drivers to work. I'll just shop for a used card that's been well tested.

Thanks again.

I also just bought this card and am having lots of problems getting it to work. Using the modifications in this thread to the wlan-ng.conf file and changing it to bind to the prism2_cs module I was able to get it to create a wlan0 device but after that when I try to ifconfig wlan0 up it fails saying the device is unknown. I guess it goes without saying that if anyone could offer some help it'd be much appreciated.

Thanks for everyone's dilligent work on this.

BTW, I'll just keep posting everything on this thread for sanity's sake.

I did email the Tech Support at D-link and they said it was a Prism 3 chipset. Now, I don't know if I'm getting that info from the engineer's mouth or just a grunt tech, so I'm not sure how valid that is. I am now quite tempted to see if I can take the card apart to see what the chipset is. I want to make sure that I can take it back to the store if need be. I'll see if I can muster up the courage.

I also did an FCC ID search at the FCC's web site. It turned up pictures in PDF format of the innards of the card. Unfortunately, they are low-res and the chips are completely unreadable. There is no mention of chipset type in the various documentation (maybe they saw that as some sort of trade secret? D-link apparently filed a confidentiality request).

Also, the Windows 98 drivers are also labeled Prism if I remember correctly. You have to forgive me for not being able to give more specifics, but I am writing all this in between classes at the college I am attending.

Anyway, I will contemplate taking the card apart. Any suggestions on how to do so safely? I definitely plan on wearing a static strap . . . .

Regards,

Kevin

There's no real safe way to go about that. Usually its the head holding together the top and bottom planes that are either snap-catched in place or soft soldered, either is pretty easy to go through. If the chipset is mounted (yes, sometimes its floating), its either to the bottom or to the head, so popping the top is the best bet. I've only ever done this before on cards that I was pretty sure were smoked.

Dude, unless you are willing to hose the card, which hey, its alright, it'll probably be more fun, I would recommend blitzing those mailing lists first. There are a lot of high level geeks on them that might be able to start you on an answer.

Also, if you can get ahold of a Winders machine, there's a software package available from Intersil's site (its been a year since I looked for it though), that'll diagnose what firmware your dealing with and give you the option of sticking a different on on there... if it is what they say it is, that package should be able to initialize the card at least.

Cheers,

Finegan

Hello everyone,

Well, I was able to find the Windoze utility that flashes the firmware for Prism chips. It is called WinUpdate. The latest version I could find is 0.7.0. I found it at this web site:

http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism/

A direct link to the utility itself:

http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-pri...date-0-7-0.exe

It's a pretty informative web site. There are apparently Linux utilities that this guy talks about that are available. I only have downloaded the Windoze software so far.

Well, according to this program the DWL-650revP is a Prism card. It says that the primary firmware version is 1.1.2 and that the station firmware is 1.7.4. I can query for other information from the card, like the MAC address and such. There is also information for getting the CIS and PDA, but I don't really know what those are.

I think it's probably safe to say that we do indeed have a Prism card here.

I saw someone say something about flashing the firmware with an older version (finegan?). I might try that. I will also try posting on the HostAP discussion group and see what happens. It looks like we might be making progress, and I didn't even have to screw up the card (yet)!

If anyone wants me to post any info that I get from WinUpdate just give me a yell.

Regards,

Kevin

Hey guys,

I've been reading your posts over the few days because I have the same card on a Redhat 7.3 Dell Latitude laptop that's not cooperating. I've gone through some of the proceedures you have been talking about, but I'm getting some strange results...

cardctl ident shows:

Socket 0:
no product info available
Socket 1:
product info: "D-Link", "DWL-650 Wireless PC Card RevP", "ISL37101P-10", "A3"
manfid: 0x000b, 0x7110
function: 6 (network)

lspci shows:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
00:03.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1420
00:03.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1420
00:07.0 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 03)
00:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1983S Maestro-3i PCI Audio Accelerator (rev 10)
00:10.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c556 Hurricane CardBus (rev 10)
00:10.1 Communication controller: 3Com Corporation Mini PCI 56k Winmodem (rev 10)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility M3 AGP 2x (rev 02)

..and whenever I insert the card and look at dmesg, I don't see anything about the card. However, when I try to do a ifup wlan0 I get this:

/sbin/ifup: configuration for wlan0 not found.
Usage: ifup <device name>


I think it just needs a config file put into the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory? (That's where I find configs for eth0, etc) ...but not getting any info in dmesg about the card or even hearing a beep makes me think I'm still missing something...

I'm going to keep at this until I either get it working or someone devs a driver for it

~dP

EDIT:

Something else I found when running iwconfig...

]# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 no wireless extensions.
]#

...is that part of the missing config file?

Does anyone know of a card that actually works with any of these distro's?

I guess for now I'll keep hacking away at it until I can figure something out.

Has anyone had any luck? All google turns up for me is this thread and the other linked previously.

It seems to me that this card is indeed a Prism card of some sort, mainly because the Windows drivers are called NETPRISM.INF, and contain this little bit:
Has anyone tried flashing the card with a known-working version of the BIOS like kingkevbo was talking about? If not, I can give that a try, as I certainly doubt Best Buy will check the card if I end up returning it as incompatible : )

Edit: Actually, I downloaded the DOS based flasher program (no Win98+ laptop handy, so I can't install the Win drivers) that was linked a few posts up, and it seems to date from early 2000. No surprise, then, that it doesn't seem to want to talk to my card. All the linux utils linked on that page assume that you have a working card and want to upgrade the firmware.

Thanks

Known version of the Firmware you mean... uhm, i haven't read about this yet being resolved. Changing the /etc/pcmcia/config file so that the driver gets loaded from above doesn't really seem to work, although according to the firmware versions that are loaded, also from the above, it would seem that the driver should load. 1.2.2 is brand spanking new or thereabouts.

First off, I would try the newest version of the orinoco_cs and hostap_cs drivers. Under my profile, in my links section, is a link to the source for both of those. .14 of the orinoco_cs series evidently with only work with 2.6 kernels, so try .13e, also you might want to post this specific problem on the orinoco_cs mailing list, the link is above.

Also note that you'll have to use that mangled up hermes2.conf file I posted above to even trick cardmgr into trying to load the module and bind it properly to the card.

Cheers,

Finegan

OK, I downloaded version .13e of the Orinoco driver, as well as the associated patch, compiled and installed just fine. I put in your hermes.conf file as well, and tried again, with the following results:

Edited to add:
Now I've tried with the orinoco driver I mentioned above, the hostap driver, and the wlan_ng driver. All of them fail in what I assume is a similar way, since all the error messages involve something along the lines of (err = -110)

Yet another edit:
When I first insert the card or do cardctl insert 0, the PCMCIA light on this laptop flashes twice, then it goes out and the power LED on the card comes on. If I reset the card, using hostap's IWxxx interface (I think), the PCMCIA light flashes a few more times, then goes back out. The PCMCIA light for my ethernet NIC in the other slot is on solid from the time the card is detected.

Thanks for your help thus far, finegan. I just don't seem to have the best luck in picking wireless cards, and the schmoes at Best Buy have no clue what they're selling, which doesn't help.