Ubuntu driver for D-Link DWL-G650+ PCMCIA card

BigAJ · 04-19-2009, 11:08 AM

Hi,

I have just installed Linux(Ubuntu 8.10) on my Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop.

I have a D-Link DWL-G650+ PCMCIA card, which worked when the laptop had Windows XP on it.

When I plug-in the DWL-G650+ PCMCIA card the laptop locks-up. No mouse movements or key-strokes work. Two LEDs flash on/off.

I have read various threads, however, I haven't really found one which addresses this point.

Please let me know (step-by-step) how to make the DWL-G650+ work with Ubuntu.

Cheers!

farslayer · 04-20-2009, 07:59 AM

Since your system crashes when you insert the card, I'm guessing you can't provide a lspcmcia output..

I found this with a google search, it appears the card contains the acx111 chip.

Code:

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Texas Instruments ACX 111 54Mbps Wireless Interface [104c:9066]
	Subsystem: D-Link System Inc DWL-G650+ AirPlusG+ CardBus Wireless LAN [1186:3b05]
	Control: I/O- Mem- BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
	Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
	Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
	Region 0: Memory at 38020000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=8K]
	Region 1: Memory at 38000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
		Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold-)
		Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

http://acx100.sourceforge.net/

http://acx100.sourceforge.net/wiki/ACX

Notes from the supported device list on the acx100 project site..

Quote:

2) The + in DWL-120+, DWL-520+ and DWL-650+ is what's important:
The normal version uses the good and well-supported Prism 2.5 chipset, whereas the + version uses the obscure ACX100 chipset.
Oh wait, it's even worse: a newer version of the DWL-650 (the one with grey antenna) is said to also have the ACX100, so it's even more difficult to tell them apart!! ARGH! Consider not buying these cards! (plus, the 650+ seems to be defective/problematic much more often than other cards, in my experience)

I do see the driver listed in Module-assistant in Debian so you may be able to compile it from there..

sudo su -
apt-get update
apt-get install module-assistant build-essentail
m-a update
m-a prepare
m-a a-i acx100
modprobe acx100

if all goes well you can add acx100 to your /etc/modules file so it will automatically load at boot.

The ultimate problem is that your system crashes when you insert the card. have you tried booting with the card inserted ?

The only time I have experienced a system crash like that when inserting a wireless PCMCIA card was when the card (which was working prior) had a hardware failure. Of course at that point it would no longer work in Windows either, and of course it failed while I was on the road at the Ohio LinuxFest...

elliott678 · 04-20-2009, 12:13 PM

If you do use that driver, you won't have encryption, as far as I know, WEP and WPA don't work with the ACX111 cards, only WEP works with the ACX100 cards. If you need encryption, go with ndiswrapper with the Windows XP driver.

farslayer · 04-20-2009, 02:17 PM

If you decide to replace the card with something a bit more Linux friendly might I suggest something from this list ?
http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards.html

I've had excellent resutls with both the Atheros based cards as well as the Ralink chipset based cards.
I have both running native Linux drivers with WPA2.

BigAJ · 04-25-2009, 11:16 AM

Hi,

Thank you for the various replies.

First point
================================================
I tried to start my Linux laptop with the DLink PCMCIA card already inserted, however, this caused the same error. ie/ the laptop completely locked-up and 2 LEDs continuously flashed.

Second point
================================================
I am completely new to Linux therefore I am facing problems to properly understand the various feedbacks.

I opened a terminal window and typed the following:
sudo su -
apt-get update
apt-get install module-assistant build-essentail
m-a update
m-a prepare
m-a a-i acx100
modprobe acx100

Things went well until I reached the m-a a-i acx100 where it failed.

I believe the failure is due to me not having downloaded the drivers. But like I said I find the various homepages/links etc quite confusing.

If someone could kindly provide an "idiot's guide" for each and every step, including driver-download that would be great.

I apologise for asking for such basic help but I am feeling frustrated and slightly stupid at the moment. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a typical ex-Windows guy how needs a "slap" :-)

Cheers!