The Unofficial Wi-Fi CF Windows Mobile 2003 Pocket PC compatible driver thread

[droppedd]

OK.. i searched and just haven't found any comprehensive threads on the topic (if it does exist, please tell me where), so here's the (very humble) beginnings of it. This may be helpful if (like me) you are in the market for a wi-fi card for your new PPC but don't know which 802.11 wireless cards have drivers for WM 2003.

KNOWN COMPATIBLE CARDS:
Ambicom WL1100 B/C (here (http://www.ambicom.com/support/driverdownload/ddwl1100x-CF.htm) for beta Windows Mobile drivers).
Dell Truemobile 1180 802.11b Compact Flash card - some people say it's not working, however. So beware.(drivers on Dell's site (http://support.dell.com/FileLib/Format.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=BSD&Category=5&OS=PPC&OSL=EN&SvcTag=&SysID=PDA_AXIM_X5&DeviceID=4306&Type=&ReleaseID=R61444); thanks to LedPocket for info).
the Socket Wireless LAN CF card. (here (http://www.socketcom.com/support/support_wlan.asp) for the drivers).
The SMC 2642W is said to work, but no WM2003-specific drivers yet, so you can't use some of the builtin wireless management features of the OS. (SMC's driver page is here (http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?sec=Products&pg=Product-Details∏=235&site=c#downloads)). Thanks to sbdave for that info.
Netgear's CF 802.11 card is said to work (according to JohnJohn's post here (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14469&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=10)).
D-Link's 650W and 660W supposedly work fine.
The Linksys cards now apparently can be made to work - see page 2 of this thread. However, the link to the drivers was removed by our favorite moderator who makes bad puns :), as you can only get those drivers legally if you're a partner of Intersil.
KNOWN INCOMPATIBLE CARDS:

Belkin F5D6060 and Pretec's card.
UNKNOWN:
the Sandisk card. It may work with the hp/ipaq card drivers (i've heard it's the same card) but I don't know yet. Post if you know better.
Those of you with the hardware who know ones that either do or don't work, please post to the thread. I will go through and edit this post as necessary. If you do post one that works with PPC2003, please provide a link to the drivers if possible.[/list][/url]

[ledpocket]

Dell posted wm'03 drivers for their truemobile 1180 cf wifi card:

link to dell support (http://support.dell.com)

I assume they would work with any ppc, not just the axim, but?

[tourdewolf]

I read yesterday in another thread that someone used the new Socket drivers for their Symbol Wireless networker card and they worked great. Can anyone confirm, I just bought the Symbol card on ebay. Will update soon.
TD

[sbdave]

The SMC card works. They dont have the 2003 drivers, so you can't use the new features, but it works with the old drivers.

[BTS]

Has anyone tried using other drivers with the Linksys card to see if that works?

[PCPhreak]

Has anyone tried using other drivers with the Linksys card to see if that works?
Ahh, good question. I'm waiting to get my new device until Linksys officially supports WM2003 or another driver is found to suffice.

[jweiss]

Does anyone have the SanDisk Connect? Stupidly, I bought it because it was cheap before I checked whether the drivers were ready yet. Does anyone know if the current drivers will work okay?

...J

[BTS]

Has anyone tried using drivers from other manufacturers? It sometimes works with Win XP when you're trying to recognize a card so why wouldn't it work here? It may not be perfect but it may tide you over until the driver for your specific card is ready.

[droppedd]

Does anyone have the SanDisk Connect? Stupidly, I bought it because it was cheap before I checked whether the drivers were ready yet. Does anyone know if the current drivers will work okay?

...J

I've actually heard that the SanDisk may be the same as the Compaq/hp card, or possibly the Netgear MA701, so you can try their drivers. If that does work, let us know on the thread.

[palmsolo]

I have a Sony WiFi card (rebranded Intel Pro 2011b card) that works ok if I put the card in and then do a soft reset. I don't think there are any updated drivers for this model and I can't use any of the new PPC2003 WiFi abilities, but I can connect and still use the card in my CLIE and Sharp Zaurus when I want.

Does anyone else have this card? Have you found updated drivers for it?

[darrylb]

Does anyone have the SanDisk Connect? Stupidly, I bought it because it was cheap before I checked whether the drivers were ready yet. Does anyone know if the current drivers will work okay?

...J

I've actually heard that the SanDisk may be the same as the Compaq/hp card, or possibly the Netgear MA701, so you can try their drivers. If that does work, let us know on the thread.

According to SanDisk, the driver is in development....

[Warlordzsinj]

I recently bought a Dell Axim X5 and a Truemobile 1180 WLAN. I installed an configured the card as instructed and got the thing working after a short time.

I came to use the Axim the following morning and on inserting the card it came up with 'Unrecognized Card in slot 1' after downloading the latest drivers performing a soft and a hard reset and messing about with all the configuration I finally gave up. I contacted Dell who then informed me that there are compatibilty issues with the Pocket PC 2003 and the 1180 WLAN card and they are working on a fix.

What I find strange is that I can't find any posts on the web that state this compatibility problem anywhere! This thread itself quotes the 1180 to be compatible.

What the hell is going on at Dell?

[KAMware]

The Belkin F5D6060 card does not work. I tried my Symbol Spectrum24 with every driver mentioned on this site without any luck.
:|

[KAMware]

I can re-confirm that the NetGear MA701 card works just fine.
There were no problems installing it or getting it operational
on my iPaq 2210. That is with the drivers that came with it
and not downloading any special ones.

:D

[SHoTTa35]

Just thought i should add this from my bud alerted me too..

Those Linksys cards can work... using generic PRISM drivers... I'll get the drivers (or link) and post them back here in a sec....

[droppedd]

Just thought i should add this from my bud alerted me too..

Those Linksys cards can work... using generic PRISM drivers... I'll get the drivers (or link) and post them back here in a sec....

wow - a lot of people with Linksys cards will be quite happy about that.

[SHoTTa35]

Just thought i should add this from my bud alerted me too..

Those Linksys cards can work... using generic PRISM drivers... I'll get the drivers (or link) and post them back here in a sec....

wow - a lot of people with Linksys cards will be quite happy about that.

now that i got the drivers.... here.. lemme post. They are 5.82MB and hosted on my friends site so pay his site a visit too... here is his post over on ***URL REmoved*** <--- clicky

visit his site at ***URL Removed*** to keep the link alive or maybe someone can get them and mirror it so all the load doesn't run off his site.

I haven't tried them myself just yet but he says they are fully compatible with Windows Mobile 2003

Post edited by moderator SC 7/16/03 07:57 EDT

[darrylb]

now that i got the drivers.... here.. lemme post. They are 5.82MB

Wow 5.82 Mb - Thats huge. How big is it installed? I hope not anywhere near that..... :)

[Steven Cedrone]

Post edited by moderator SC 7/16/03 07:57 EDT

After finally being able to get to the site and download the driver, I was able to read the EULA which states that "Unauthorised reproduction or distribution" is strictly prohibited. So: sorry folks, URL's removed...

Steven Cedrone
Community Moderator

[droppedd]

anyone have a link to a legal distribution of the PRISM drivers?

but looking around Intersil's site, it seems unlikely... you need to be a paying partner of theirs for the drivers. I think they're just supposed to be reference drivers the OEMs can use to build their own customized drivers. I don't get it, though... Even though I have a branded Asus GeForce2 that came with its own propietary drivers, I still can easily download the generic GeForce drivers from NVidia for free and they work fine... why Intersil doesn't do the same is beyond me.

Doesn't the Socket/Symbol card use a PRISM chipset? It might be a different one (Intersil has a few release versions of the chipset), but if anyone wants to try those or other drivers on the Linksys cards, let us know what happens.

[SHoTTa35]

Post edited by moderator SC 7/16/03 07:57 EDT

After finally being able to get to the site and download the driver, I was able to read the EULA which states that "Unauthorised reproduction or distribution" is strictly prohibited. So: sorry folks, URL's removed...

Steven Cedrone
Community Moderator

oops, didn't read all that just yet sorry... didn't know.. but atleast i still saved it! Just incase i get a linksys card, not sure how soon tho.

[midtoad]

Anyone get the Trendware TEW-222CF card working yet? I can't, at least not with the supplied drivers, nor with symbol or Pretec drivers. However, I never did a soft reset after any of the installs, in case that is a factor.

cheers
Stewart in Calgary

[wocket]

I can't seem to get the Buffalo WLI-CF-S11G working with the iPAQ 2220.

I've tried various drivers but no success.

I'll update here if I get any success with other drivers.

[papac]

Can anyone point me in the direction to get ahold of the generic Prism drivers to get my Linksys WCF12 working with Pocket PC 2003?

Thanks,

papac

[christak]

RE: Linksys WCF12...

http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83050&perpage=10&pagenumber=4

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x347b3f9a15add711abdc0090277a778c,00.html

[papac]

Thank you so much. I too was one of those that bought the ipaq 2215 and the linksys WPC12 at the same time. Only to find out the drivers did not work.

Anyway, thank you, it now works.

papac

[droppedd]

It appears that DLink will be officially releasing WM2003 drivers for the 660W in mid-august. While the current drivers work, the new ones should allow for zero-config and all the other WM2003 features, which is nice. Keep an eye on their site (http://support.dlink.com/Products/view.asp?productid=DCF-660W).

[blazio]

Does anyone know about the beta driver for the ambicom wifi card listed at the top of the thread? It says it is compatible with ARM based devices only and from what i recall, the 2215 is Xscale based. Thanks!

0X

Marvin the Martian[color=green]

[droppedd]

It says it is compatible with ARM based devices only and from what i recall, the 2215 is Xscale based. Thanks!

XScales are 100% compatible with the ARM instruction set, but with some other special features not generally taken advantage of in the interests of cross-compatibility with plain-old ARM devices. Rather like AMD's PC processors that are compatible with Pentiums despite a different architecture. So just like you can use an Athlon on any software that requires a Pentium ("x86" architecture), you can use an XScale for ARM-specific apps.

[Mark_Venture]

Does anyone know about the beta driver for the ambicom wifi card listed at the top of the thread? It says it is compatible with ARM based devices only and from what i recall, the 2215 is Xscale based. Thanks!
The CE .NET Beta driver Ambicom had on their site dated July 1, 2003, that I was using has been replaced by one now listed as Windows Mobile/PPC 2003/CE .Net Driver and is dated July 31, 2003.

Yes, this Windows Mobile/PPC 2003/CE .Net driver for "ARM-Based devices only" does work with the Ambicom WL1100C-CF card in my iPAQ 2215.

As droppedd says, XSCALE is compatible with software written for ARM.

[blazio]

Great guys! Thanks for all the help! Now i just need to find a VPN client compatible with Cisco systems...Movian VPN doesn't have a windows 2003 compatible version yet! Any suggestions?!

0X

Marvin The Martian

[SHoTTa35]

umm, the one that's built in.... for MS stuff using MS Clients always work the best!

and yeah, Xscale is an Arm processor with a new name.. so all (well most) ARM drivers and apps work on it.

[blazio]

oh, in order to use the wifi spots at my medical school, i have ot use a VPN client that can access the Cisco setup they have there. Apparently i can't just use the embedded software for Wifi hookup.

0X

Marvin the Martian

[Dilldog]

I purchased a Pretec WLAN CF card at the same time as my 2210 and I couldn't get it to work.... logged a message with Pretec and 5 days later got this message....

Dear Sir,

WLAN card not compatible w/ IPAQ2210 PDA. Sorry.

:(

At only£69 it would have been a good price, had it worked!!!

[blazio]

I feel your pain with the card not working my brutha. I almost bought the Sandisk wireless LAN card but did more research on pocket pc 2003 compatibility. It kind of stinks that with this new little 2215 that i have comes great incompatibility with much of the software out there.

ah well...soon others will know the ways of the ipaq 2215 and realize its true potential.

0X

[iPaqDude]

Ok.... pulling remainder of hair out....

Has anyone been able to get the Socket Low Power WLAN card to work with the 2215's? I downloaded the new drivers but am havin a hell of a time getting it to talk to my Linksys AP. I have disabled Mac address filtering, WEP, turned on SSID broadcasting and still cannot get the two to talk...

And the Socket documentation does not even come close to the setup utility.

Any assistance would be most definately appreciated.... before I become a cue ball.... :(

[MMMGT]

I tried contacting SMC about WM2003 drivers and this is the response I got on 7/16/03 - not veryhelpful

Dear James,

Thank you for choosing SMC Networks, Inc.

Please try the drivers on the web site @ http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?action=tech_support_drivers_downloads&categoryID=5&productID=235&fileDownload=0

It works for windows CE 3.0 & above .

At present we have no drivers for windows CE 4.02 , it will be posted on the web site when it is released .

If you need further assistance, please reply with history to this email to [email protected]

Regards,

Mohana sundaram . a
SMC Networks Technical Support
1-800-SMC-4YOU,
[email protected]

At SMC, we continue to expand our service options to better support your connectivity requirements. During this quarter we will be adding many online support tools designed to ensure a faster more enhanced level of service. You can look forward to continued improvements and support enhancements from SMC Networks as we enter our 31st year of providing network connectivity to our clients worldwide

[Willmonwah]

:oops:

I thought I read every post in the thread but I guess not carefully enough.

[Willmonwah]

Here's a link to a Brighthand thread that details how to get a Senoa driver to work with Intersil (?) type Wifi cards, and cj on the HP support forums says the steps will also get a f5d6060 working.

http://bizforums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xc4ed7d7f6717f44da37bace8559e1246,00.html

And the actual steps:

http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=86559&highlight=802.11b+CF

I have yet to test whether it works on my Belkin.

[Willmonwah]

SELF EDITED: Sorry, I missed christak's posts. :(

The link he gives on page two also works for the netgear and belkin.

[Paul]

I contacted NetGear about new drivers for the MA701, here's the reply:

Dear Paul,

Thank you for contacting Netgear Support. My name is Anurag & I will be handling your enquiry.

Currently we do not have such update on this and we can not give you a specific time period when the compatible drivers for MA701 Wireless PC Card for Mobile 2003 Pocket PC will be available. I will forward this to the concerned authority.

Regards

Anurag Seth
Netgear Support
[email protected]

[darrylb]

I feel your pain with the card not working my brutha. I almost bought the Sandisk wireless LAN card but did more research on pocket pc 2003 compatibility. It kind of stinks that with this new little 2215 that i have comes great incompatibility with much of the software out there.

ah well...soon others will know the ways of the ipaq 2215 and realize its true potential.

0X

I bumped into a guy today who was using a 2210 with a SanDisk card, I asked him about it and he said he was using the PPC2k2 drivers and they just worked fine!

I was curious because I remembered that the SanDisk card was not known to be compatible.

I guess you can chalk up the SanDisk card as working if you have a 2210 :D . He also mentioned that the battery life was reasonably good with it.

[Sebastian]

Really, you actually saw the sandisk card working? Do you (or anyone else) know how the drivers were installed? I have the card but have had no luck.

Thanks.

[PoweriPaq]

I have the Linksys WPC11 V.3, PCMCIA or PC Card and I can't get that to work. I downloaded the driver WinCE400.zip and couldn't get that to work. Anyone has any luck on getting this to work with a different driver from linksys website?

[Brad Adrian]

Yes, this Windows Mobile/PPC 2003/CE .Net driver for "ARM-Based devices only" does work with the Ambicom WL1100C-CF card in my iPAQ 2215.
I did figure out, though, that the drivers do NOT work if installed to the iPAQ file store; they have to go into main memory.

[Brad Adrian]

Really, you actually saw the sandisk card working? Do you (or anyone else) know how the drivers were installed? I have the card but have had no luck.
No, the 2002 drivers are NOT compatible. I've contacted SanDisk and they had told me that beta drivers would be released "around" August 20 (two days ago). I'm trying to remain optimistic and believe they'll be here any day now, but I got a good deal on the Ambicon card tonight ($39 after rebate) and just went ahead and started using it.

[Willmonwah]

YAY! :bday: Belkin 2003 drivers are available at http://web.belkin.com/support/download/download.asp?download=F5D6060&lang=1&mode=

Functionally, it's identical to the Senoa. Who know?

[Paul]

SELF EDITED: Sorry, I missed christak's posts. :(

The link he gives on page two also works for the netgear and belkin.

Specifically, what drivers work for the Netgear CF card?

[darrylb]

Really, you actually saw the sandisk card working? Do you (or anyone else) know how the drivers were installed? I have the card but have had no luck.
No, the 2002 drivers are NOT compatible. I've contacted SanDisk and they had told me that beta drivers would be released "around" August 20 (two days ago). I'm trying to remain optimistic and believe they'll be here any day now, but I got a good deal on the Ambicon card tonight ($39 after rebate) and just went ahead and started using it.

Having seen this guy using the card, I went ahead and purchased the card.

I installed the drivers, inserted the card and configured the drivers to connect to my WLAN (Belkin 802.11g AP). Initially I had no success, the light was on, but no one was home (could not get an IP Address). I added a manual IP Address and still had no luck. I removed the encryption from the AP (was using 128bit WEP) and it worked. I added 64 bit WEP and it still worked (obviously had to add the encryption to the PPC config).

I suspect (from what I have read) that the IP Address issue is because the AP is not the DHCP server (I have the M1122 DSL modem configured to do that). So I'll try changing this at some stage and update.

I can confirm that the drivers worked fine (the card uses the prism chipset) and it works on a G network too! I suspect that the new drivers will have better support for DHCP (there is no reason why the DHCP should not have worked - my WiFi desktop gets an address fine). The issues could also be something to do with the G network (which has been upgraded to the standard) and the card not supporting Layer 3 over G networks properly.

I'll post updates when/if I try changes.

[delfuhd]

I went through the whole thread, and I might have missed it, but what's the news on the Symbol Spectrum24 WiFi Card? Any drivers? And what about linksys WCF11? There's WCF12 up the wazoo, but I can't find any news on wcf11. Thanks!

[darrylb]

If anyone is interested, SanDisk have (finally) released WM2003 drivers. They can be downloaded from their support site.

One thing that I noticed - the Access point I connect to has to be a DHCP server or the card wont get an address. :?

I dont know if this is an issue with other cards or not.