ndiswrapper & US Robotics 5411 maxg PCMCIA Wireless card

Fyrad · 05-18-2006, 07:09 AM

Hi!
I just bought the US Robotics 5411 maxg PCMCIA Wireless card and I can't figure out how to make it work under Ubuntu "Dapper Drake" Beta. I've spotted several HOW-TOs on the web (even on ndiswrapper's wiki) but the card simply don't work.

Here's what I did:
1) I downloaded ndiswrapper, ndisgtk amd ndiswrapper-utils from the Ubuntu's repositories;
2) I downloaded the windows drivers for my card from USR's website (usr.com/support/5411/5411-files/5411-emea-1.00.022.exe)
3) After unpacking the .exe, I used

Code:

cabextract Data.exe

to get the .cab files of the drivers, and then I called

Code:

cd Disk1
unshield data2.cab

to extract their content;
4) After going into the subdirectory "Installer_Files_Win2kXp" I called

Code:

sudo ndiswrapper -i USRMAXGa.inf

to install the driver into ndiswrapper;
5) I followed the instructions on ndiswrapper's wiki to load the driver via modprobe.

Now... if i write

Code:

ndiswrapper -l

with the card into the PCMCIA slot the program says that both the driver and the hardware are present, but the card doesn't even turn on! Am I doing something wrong? What can I do to solve this thing? Thanks a lot!

equus · 05-19-2006, 12:00 PM

What does /var/log/messages say when you modprobe ndiswrapper ?

Fyrad · 05-19-2006, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by equus

What does /var/log/messages say when you modprobe ndiswrapper ?

the system log said that the ndiswrapper was loaded, but I didn't find any sign of the wifi card's driver being loaded into the system... and this morning I found why: there was a kernel module, named bcm43xx, that loaded BEFORE ndiswrapper, therefore preventing ndiswrapper to load my driver. Now everything is ok, thanks for your reply! :P

K2p · 06-02-2006, 04:39 PM

Having same issue, driver present and hardware present after

ndiswrapper -l

How did you fix the bcm43xx issue?

(yes a bit new to this)

Fyrad · 06-03-2006, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by K2p

How did you fix the bcm43xx issue?

(yes a bit new to this)

I have found a way to block certain kernel modules to start automatically at boot time: if you have Ubuntu, or another Debian-based distro, you have to write in a console:

Code:

cd /etc/modprobe.d/
sudo nano blacklist

A text file containing several entries like "blacklist xxxxx" should appear. You just have to go to the end of the file and write the string

Code:

blackist bcm43xx

then save the file and exit the program. When you restart Linux, the bcm43xx module shouldn't be running anymore (use the command lsmod to see which modules are currently running on your linux box).

Let me know if you have any further questions!