Belkin F5D7010 problem with FC2 on Sony Vaio
 

I am attempting to get my Belkin F5D7010 wireless card working on my Sony Vaio GRV-680 running PC2 ver. 2.6.8-1.521. To the best of my knowledge I have followed the install instructions closely but it still fails. I have hit a brick wall and need some assistance. I am trying this at work where we have cable internet. The cable modem is plugged into an 8-port Linksys router (192.168.1.1) and we have a D-Link 4-port wireless router (192.168.0.1) plugged into the Linksys. I know all the connections are correct since it works on the Windows side.

I installed ndiswrapper and the bcmwl5 driver from the CD that came with the card. When I enter "ndiswrapper -l" I get:

[root@WS4313 robb]# /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5 hardware present

When I do a "cardctl ident" I get"

[root@WS4313 robb]# /sbin/cardctl ident
Socket 0:
product info: "Broadcom", "802.11g CardBus", "4.5"
manfid: 0x02d0, 0x0417
function: 6 (network)
Socket 1:
no product info available

I then load the module with "modprobe ndiswrapper" and in dmesg I see:

[root@WS4313 robb]# dmesg | grep ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper version 0.10 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5.sys (Broadcom,12/29/2002, 3.10.36.0) added
ndiswrapper version 0.10 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5.sys (Broadcom,12/29/2002, 3.10.36.0) added
ndiswrapper: using irq 9
wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:30:bd:94:4b:6a using driver bcmwl5.sys
ndiswrapper (set_auth_mode:482): setting auth mode failed (C0010015)
ndiswrapper (iw_set_encr:677): adding encryption key 1 failed (C0010015)

This tells me that there is a card there, it is recognized and the driver is being loaded.
Then I try the configuration.Runing "iwconfig" to see if the interface is available:

[root@WS4313 robb]# /sbin/iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:off/any Nickname:"WS4313"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate=54Mb/s Tx-Power:9 dBm
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-10 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:280 Missed beacon:0

Then I check to see if I can see the access point:

[root@WS4313 robb]# /sbin/iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:0D:88:EA:EC:F2
ESSID:"rehm"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.437GHz
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-42 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit Rate:1Mb/s
Bit Rate:2Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5Mb/s
Bit Rate:11Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100

Then I set mode to managed,the key restricted and the frequency of the AP.

[root@WS4313 robb]# /sbin/iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
[root@WS4313 robb]# /sbin/iwconfig wlan0 key restricted xxxxxxxxxx
[root@WS4313 robb]# /sbin/iwconfig wlan0 freq 2.437G

All this shows when I do a "iwconfig". Next I try to set the network name.

[root@WS4313 robb]# /sbin/iwconfig wlan0 essid rehm

and my ifcfg-wlan0 shows:

[root@WS4313 robb]# more /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0
# Wireless NDIS Wrapper Config
DEVICE=wlan0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
HWADDR=00:30:BD:94:4B:6A
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Wireless
DHCP_HOSTNAME=WS4313
MODE=Managed
ESSID='rehm'
CHANNEL=6
IPADDR=
DOMAIN=
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=no
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
IPV6INIT=no
RATE=Auto

But when I do another "iwconfig" I still see that the essid has not been set.

[root@WS4313 robb]# /sbin/iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:off/any Nickname:"WS4313"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate=54Mb/s Tx-Power:9 dBm
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption key:ABCD-EF01-23 Security mode:restricted
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-10 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:1737 Missed beacon:0

No matter what I do or what order I issue the commands I can't get "iwconfig" to show the essid. Only "off/any".
At this point I still can't make a connection. Anyone have any ideas what I'm missing ?

Thanks

There have been a lot of people having trouble setting their essid lately. I'd try to update your wireless-tools package it if possible and see if you can set it then.

Have you tried setting the AP?

/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 ap 00:0D:88:EA:EC:F2 essid rehm

Also see if you can connect with the encryption off first, then turn the encryption back on once it has connected, just to eliminate that possibility.

It might also be the driver, did you use the PCMCIAbcmwl5 driver or the pci one?

Sam

Thanks, I'll try to find an update and give that a try next.

Sam,

I tried setting the AP with the command you suggested. The reply was "error: unrecognised wireless request "rehm".

Encryption off doesn't seem to make any difference either.

The driver I used was the one on the install disk that came with the wirless card so I'm sure that it is PCMCIA. There was only one driver on the disk.

Are you familiar with SUSE ? I've heard that it may be more forgiving to wireless. I have a 9.1 disk and am considering reloading that.
Robb

OK try seperate iwconfig commands with no encryption;

/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 ap 00:0D:88:EA:EC:F2
/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 essid rehm

Then check iwconfig output to see if it has taken; then try dhcpcd/dhclient or ifconfig to get/set an IP addy.
If this works try it with the encryption, ie

/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 enc XXXXXXXXXX
/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 ap 00:0D:88:EA:EC:F2
/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 essid rehm

or variations thereof (eg AP first then enc then essid, etc) until something works.

HTH
Sam

Hi ogee,

Just a quick suggestion. Try using this driver and see what happens.

http://downloads.emachines.com/netwo..._3_20_23_0.zip

It seems to be a good one for the belkin cards. I have the exact same card as you and it works great with MDK10.1CE. It would be nice to get this essid thing nailed down because as darkleaf says a lot of people have been getting this. In fact, another poster with the PCI version did exactly the same thing (installed driver from cd that came with card) and had similar issues. Please post back.
Regards
Chris

I've got the card to work with Slackware 9.0, 9.1 and 10.0, Peanut 9.5 and 9.6, Arch 0.7 ... all the distros that don't have GUI wizardy things. Every big name distro (FC, Mandrake and Suse) have crapped out when I tried to use the GUI and then from command line.

If you can get hold of the PCMCIA version of the driver, it should work.

Sam

Sam,

I did try splitting your command into two separate commands before. When I issued just the "ap" part or the "essid" part I did not get an errror message as I did when I combined them but when I looked at "iwconfig" it did not take.

I had seen a message earlier from Chris and got the driver that he suggested and am going to try it now.

Thanks
Robb

Chris,
Thanks for the reply. I had seen your post about this driver to someone else so I grabbed it and will try it in a few minutes. I will post to let you know the outcome. Hopefully this will be the fix for this card.

Robb

Success !!
 

Chris, Sam and Darkleaf:

Thanks for all the assistance. I downloaded the driver that Chris suggested and installed it. I then went throught the sourceforge intallation instructions and got the same results. Then per Sams suggestion I changed the key from restricted to open. When I issued "dhclient wlan0" it all fell into place and I could ping the routers and then locations on the internet. I then changed the key back to restricted and it still works. I am now typing this on the Linux side with the wireless card. Yea ! Hurrah ! Now all I have to do is to change the configurations so that it will load automagically.

Once again thanks for all the assistance.

Robb