I cannot make this card to work on my HP ze4200. I am using ndiswrapper (9.0 and 10.0) combined with WinXP driver. The card works fine on XP, so no hardware issue for sure. (Actually, hate to say this, but everything works fine with WinXP)

I tried Redhat 9 and Fedore Core 1, the card cannot even be seen when I lspci (-xv, -vv, -nv). Using HW probe option -H 1, the card is shown but its registers are not initialized (IO and Mem). The IRQ is shown to have value of 5. I noticed that WinXP has its IRQ as 5 too) Definitely there is a Linux bug somewhere here with FC1 and Redhat 9. So I cannot use RealTek driver though I compiled driver and installed OK.

Under Fedore Core 2 and 3, the card is initialized (IRQ is 11 and 7, respectively). The IO and MEM BAR registers are initialized to have same value as shown here:

[root@localhost root]# lspci -s 02:00.0 -xv 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8180L 802.11b MAC (rev 20)
Subsystem: Netgear: Unknown device 4700
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
I/O ports at 4000
Memory at 14000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
00: ec 10 80 81 07 00 90 02 20 00 00 02 00 40 00 00
10: 01 40 00 00 00 00 00 14 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 01 00 00 85 13 00 47
30: 00 00 00 00 50 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0b 01 20 40

[root@localhost root]# ndiswrapper installs fine, dmesg shows:
......
Yenta: CardBus bridge found at 0000:00:0a.0 [103c:0024]
Yenta: ISA IRQ mask 0x04b8, PCI irq 11
Socket status: 30000828
PCI: Enabling device 0000:02:00.0 (0000 -> 0003)
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:02:00.0 to 64
ndiswrapper: using irq 11
divert: allocating divert_blk for wlan0
wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:09:5b:8b:af:25 using driver ma521nd5.sys
ndiswrapper device wlan0 supports WPA with AES/CCMP and TKIP ciphers
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x378-0x37f 0x408-0x40f 0x480-0x48f 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
......

[root@localhost root]# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSIDff/any Nickname:"localhost.localdomain"
Mode:Auto Frequency:2.412GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate=11Mb/s Tx-Power:20 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
RTS thr=2432 B Fragment thr=2432 B
Encryption key:0000-0000-00 Security mode:restricted
Power Managementff
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-52 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

[root@localhost root]# iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:0F:3D:0531
ESSID:"ANY"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.412GHz
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-45 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption keyff
Bit Rate:1Mb/s
Bit Rate:2Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5Mb/s
Bit Rate:11Mb/s
Bit Rate:33.5Mb/s
Bit Rate:32.5Mb/s
Bit Rate:33.5Mb/s
Bit Rate:36Mb/s
Bit Rate:34.5Mb/s
Bit Rate:22.5Mb/s
Bit Rate:33.5Mb/s
Bit Rate:39.5Mb/s
Bit Rate:39Mb/s
Bit Rate:42Mb/s
Bit Rate:41Mb/s
Bit Rate:39.5Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0

[root@localhost root]#

I verified the MAC addrress above and it maches the MAC of my router. But the AC is not reachable as you can see. Also since the installation of ndiswrapper, the keyboard behaves out of whack. Sometimes it just repeats the characters typed in repeatedly.

remove the ndiswrapper and this problem is gone.

I suspect Linux (regardless of which Distro, I tried Suse 9.1 as well, same problem) does not work properly with the Radeon IGP 320 Mobile chipset. But XP works just fine.

Any help is appreciated it.

Perhaps this can get some response ;^(

Anyone who has a HP laptop ZExxxx (AMD) model and a working wireless card, please let me know what card you have and which distro you use and which driver (ndiswrapper, realtek, built-in Linux driver, ...) . My great appreciation.
--
Tho

Just found out from the web that Linux PCMCIA_PS module just cannot handle this O2 Micro Cardbus controller of HP laptopP ZE4200.

I have tried 3 different wireless PCMCIA card (Belkin F5D6020, Netgear MA521, Microsoft MN-520). All failed even though the drivers compiled and installed OK.

All these cards work fine with WinXP though. The MN-520 is the worst case, none of the Linux (Redhat 9, FC1, FC2, FC3, Suse 9.1) is able to boot with it inserted.

Hmm. I hope FC4 may has a solution. In the meanwhile, WinXP is the only choice.


Well , has no choice but to wipe out Linux from my laptop. Still have Fedora Core 3 on my desk top though.

Actually, I sold my two cards Belkin F5D6020 and Netgear MA521 on Ebay, returned the Microsoft MN-520 to the store and bought the NETGEAR WG511.

This is how I did it after 2 hours of work ( and half of my hair gone) and i am writing this with this new card functioning on Fedora Core 2.

- Get Prism54 driver prism54-cvs-latest.tar.bz2 from here http://prism54.org/
- Get the firmware from http://prism54.org/~mcgrof/firmware/, get the version 1.0.4.3 and rename it isl3890

- Untar ithe driver and Follow the instructions in README file. You do not need to build a new kernel. I did not have to. But you might have to do this first. Try without doing it, unless you cannot build the Prism driver.

Make sure you are root.

cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.5-1.358 (or whatever the release you have, I have Fedora Core 2 which is 2.6.5-1.358)
make oldconfig

mkdir -p /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
Now copy (or move) the file isl3890 to this new directory.

Then, go back to your Prism54 directory and install this Prism54 driver

tar xvfj prism54-cvs-latest.tar.bz2
cd tar xvfj prism54-cvs-latest
make clean modules
make install
depmod -a

Now, for some reason beyond my knowledge, the device created is eth1 and not wlan0. I have a built-in ethernet in my labtop HP ZE4200, if you do not have one, I think the device will be eth0. Use your own judgement here.

cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
create a file name ifcfg-eth1 which has this content:

# NETGEAR WG511 WIRELESS NOTEBOOK CARD
DEVICE=eth1
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
GATEWAY=192.168.0.1 (not really needed, I think)
TYPE=WIRELESS
NEEDHOSTNAME=yes
CHANNEL=1 (Make it the same as the one used by your router)
HWADDR=12;34:56:78:90:12 (or whatever the back of your card indicates)
MODE=MANAGED
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
ESSID=ANY (make it the same as your router)
KEY=xxxxxxxxxx ( If you do not enable KEY at your router, remove this xxxxxxxx, if you do enable KEY, type in exactly what you use there, (do not type 0x in front)
RATE=AUTO

Now try this first, it might work:

/etc/init.d/network restart

If not, reboot the system.

It works for me.

Ppphhhhuuuuuuu

Also, to complete the situaion, add this line into /etc/modprobe.conf

alias eth1 prism54 ( assuming eth1 is the wireless device)

Then do: cardctl ident, you should see some output as followed:
[root@localhost root]# cardctl ident
Socket 0:
product info: "Intersil", "ISL3890", "-", "-"
manfid: 0x000b, 0x3890
function: 254 ((null))

Edit /etc/pcmcia/config right after these lines:

#
# Wireless network adapters
#

Add these:
card "Netgear WG511 Wireless Notebook card, Prism 54"
version "Intersil", "ISL3890", "-", "-"
manfid: 0x000b, 0x3890
bind "prism54"


The version and manfid should match what you see from "cardctl ident" command.

Forgot to say this.

Set ONBOOT=no in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 and add the following line in /etc/rc.d/rc.local

ifup eth1

It seems to me PCMCIA is only started after network start and the wireless card is not initialized yet. This is perhaps why there is error during boot saying 'eth1 is not present, delay initialization'