Hi! I am running Mandrake 10.1 on a Compaq presario 920US.
My pcmcia service is off. When I run "drakconf" and check which services are running, the pcmcia one says it is stopped and if I try to start, it doesn't!

I also tried to run a a shell this command "service pcmcia start" with all sorts of options and combinations but nothing seems to work.

It's set to start at boot, but it's just not doing it.

I am pretty sure this is the problem because when I insert a wireless network card, absolutely nothing happens.

I hope the great linux community can help me again on solving this problem.

Cheers!

Nelson

I'm not familiar with Mandrake but will try to at least help a bit:
"nothing seems to work" is not very descriptive, post what error messages you get. Is there any output in /var/log/syslog or /var/log/messages (don't know which mandrake uses) after you try to start the pcmcia service?

If you collect some more information, people might be more willing to answer your question.

Hi!
I found the following messages when searching through the logs

Mar 31 04:05:39 nery drakconnect[9752]: user asked for loading module orinoco_cs (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc orinoco_cs (Driver for PCMCIA Lucent Orinoco, Prism II based and similar wireless cards))
Mar 31 19:43:15 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 1 00:34:16 nery drakconnect[8537]: user asked for loading module atmel_cs (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc atmel_cs (Support for Atmel at76c50x 802.11 wireless ethernet cards.))
Apr 1 00:34:24 nery drakconnect[8537]: user asked for loading module atmel_pci (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc atmel_pci (Support for Atmel at76c50x 802.11 wireless ethernet cards.))
Apr 1 00:46:50 nery drakxservices[9297]: running: chkconfig --del pcmcia
Apr 1 00:52:03 nery drakxservices[12546]: running: chkconfig --add pcmcia
Apr 1 10:09:55 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 2 01:26:43 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 2 01:59:50 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 2 02:06:44 nery drakconnect[6107]: user asked for loading module orinoco_cs (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc orinoco_cs (Driver for PCMCIA Lucent Orinoco, Prism II based and similar wireless cards))
Apr 2 02:19:03 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 3 01:32:06 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 3 13:00:54 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 3 21:25:51 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 4 21:44:38 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 5 12:43:09 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 5 19:03:02 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 5 23:13:35 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Mar 31 04:05:39 nery drakconnect[9752]: user asked for loading module orinoco_cs (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc orinoco_cs (Driver for PCMCIA Lucent Orinoco, Prism II based and similar wireless cards))
Mar 31 19:43:15 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 1 00:34:16 nery drakconnect[8537]: user asked for loading module atmel_cs (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc atmel_cs (Support for Atmel at76c50x 802.11 wireless ethernet cards.))
Apr 1 00:34:24 nery drakconnect[8537]: user asked for loading module atmel_pci (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc atmel_pci (Support for Atmel at76c50x 802.11 wireless ethernet cards.))
Apr 1 00:46:50 nery drakxservices[9297]: running: chkconfig --del pcmcia
Apr 1 00:52:03 nery drakxservices[12546]: running: chkconfig --add pcmcia
Apr 1 10:09:55 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 2 01:26:43 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 2 01:59:50 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 2 02:06:44 nery drakconnect[6107]: user asked for loading module orinoco_cs (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc orinoco_cs (Driver for PCMCIA Lucent Orinoco, Prism II based and similar wireless cards))
Apr 2 02:19:03 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 3 01:32:06 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 3 13:00:54 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 3 21:25:51 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 4 21:44:38 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 5 12:43:09 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 5 19:03:02 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Apr 5 23:13:35 nery rc: Starting pcmcia: succeeded
Mar 31 04:05:39 nery drakconnect[9752]: user asked for loading module orinoco_cs (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc orinoco_cs (Driver for PCMCIA Lucent Orinoco, Prism II based and similar wireless cards))
Apr 1 00:34:16 nery drakconnect[8537]: user asked for loading module atmel_cs (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc atmel_cs (Support for Atmel at76c50x 802.11 wireless ethernet cards.))
Apr 1 00:34:24 nery drakconnect[8537]: user asked for loading module atmel_pci (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc atmel_pci (Support for Atmel at76c50x 802.11 wireless ethernet cards.))
Apr 1 00:46:50 nery drakxservices[9297]: running: chkconfig --del pcmcia
Apr 1 00:52:03 nery drakxservices[12546]: running: chkconfig --add pcmcia
Apr 2 02:06:44 nery drakconnect[6107]: user asked for loading module orinoco_cs (type network/main|gigabit|pcmcia|usb|wireless|firewire, desc orinoco_cs (Driver for PCMCIA Lucent Orinoco, Prism II based and similar wireless cards))


So aparently the pcmcia is working...odd!

What I meant by nothing seems to work is that when I put the wireless card in, there's no lights, nothing that shows that the card works. It works fine in windows, but I just cannot make it work in Linux.

I hope that this further information will alllow someone to help me with this.

Thanks a lot again!

Nelson

Possibly the lights will only turn on when the card is brought up.
Check two things:
- plugin the card and run cardinfo, an X11 tool that will show you the pcmcia devices. See if the card shows up here.
- If yes, try to run 'ifconfig ethX up' (X is the number of your network card...) and see if that works. If it does, then your card should be ready to work (make sure you don't run it on another network card... then it'd of course work).

Hi again!

I take that back (again! :-) ).

The pcmcia was down. I typed modprobe yenta_socket and it now works (all the lights are on). All I'm left to do is figure out how to configure the wireless card connection, since I do not know which module it uses. It's a wpc11. Any thoughts?

Thanks again!

Don't know if Mandrake has any configuration program, but generally use iwconfig and iwlist.
Have fun!