I used to swear by Linksys

[Pussywillow]

...but now I just swear at it.

The problem. PCMIA card in Laptop is a common linksys wireless-g 2.4 ghz WPC54g. The laptop is a Toshiba satellite running Win XP.

We've been running the above card for years, connecting with ease to our 4 PC network running thru a Linksys router.

I won't go into detail on the network cos that isn't the problem. We are having difficulty getting the Laptop to recognise the PCMIA card.

My wife dropped the laptop and(almost)snapped the aforementioned card. It still worked pretty well, but we both knew it needed replacing.

So I bought a new one.

That's when the trouble began. Even though we had the exact same card in there before, the laptop will not recognise the new one. I tried loading the Linksys software. Didn't like that at all. I installed it several times but each time it just says card not installed.

Ok I thought I'll do it manually. Windows can't decide what the PCMIA card is : a PCI Modem, Ethernet controller or a Texas PCMIA card !

I had to do a system restore just to get the old (broken) card working again.

Any ideas guys ? Am I installing the new card incorrectly ? Do you think the new card is faulty ?

[Rick]

If you did in fact drop the laptop and ALMOST broke the old card off.
Then the laptop and or PCMIA card slot may be damaged

Before installing the new card.
If it was replacing an exact like model.
Then you should not have had to do anything.
Just tell the system to turn the old off and allow it to be removed.
then replace it with the new one.
NO CHANGES should have been needed

Are you sure you don't have the power options set for the slot?
In device manager use properties for the card slot..

Also what if any changes had you made to the configuration of the old card?

[Pussywillow]

Thanks for replying Rick.

When I got the new card, I just thought I would have to take out the old one and put the new one in.

I uninstalled the old, rebooted and put the new one in.

Then it came up up with all the guff about new hardware installed etc. the Linksys card wasn't picked up by XP. It knew there was something new in there but just wouldn't recognise what it was. I even tried pointing the wizard to the D:\ drive where i had the Linksys software in. Just said there was no driver info on the disc.

I tried uninstalling everything relating to both cards and trying again, but got the same thing each time. Maybe I'm doing something wrong at this stage ?

[Rick]

I don't know about the Linksys card.
But I have seen a few that required the old software to be uninstalled.
Then reboot.
Then install the new software and during the install put the new card into the slot and use the pcmia Util. to avtivate the card beofre it was seen and the drivers installed and accessed correctly.
Almost like some of these low end USB device drives

Just another case of following the exact order as shown in the doc's

In addition windows does go brain dead at times and needs to have the driver data base updated and or rebuilt .
There are two files in the c:\windows\inf folder that control this.
If these files are deleted . Then windows will rebuild the data base

I am sorry But I don't recall the exact file name at the moment.
I'll look for it and get back to you

[Rick]

Found it.. Here

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=275499

[classicsoftware]

Try the card in a different PC and see what happens. If it works OK, it's your PC. Then you owe Linksys an apology. If not, we'll then you can swear at them.

[Pussywillow]

Try the card in a different PC and see what happens. If it works OK, it's your PC. Then you owe Linksys an apology. If not, we'll then you can swear at them.

Don't have access to another Laptop.....

Take out the duffo card and put the old broken one in and the laptop recognises it immediately - by specific name !

It's got to be the card, surely.

[jlreich]

Any company can have a bad product from time to time. Linksys is a good company. Just return the card for a replacement.