laptop help

[toolman206]

Note: all was working well for months prior to a win xp update (sp1).
System: Dell Inspiron 8200 WinXP Home SP1 linksys wpc11 v1 nic

Problem: my linksys wireless nic, a wpc11 v1, shows yellow "!" in device mgr with comment that "device would not start....error code 10". Upon boot or insertion, the red power light comes on/hear the beep/light goes out/device mgr shows error code 10. Latest driver from linksys (was already installed prior to meltdown). Device mgr shows TI cardbus controller all ok. I've uninstalled/installed linksys device/driver many times.

I ran across a post elsewhere that suggested this fix: Open regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\PCMCIA\Parameters
under Edit->New->DWARD Value set to
Value Name: DisableIsaToPciRouting
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1


Oddly, this worked for about 24 hours. I even shutdown and restarted. It seemed fine. Now it's dead in the water again!!!! Registry key is same.

I've read elsewhere that it has something to do with card or system looking for a reset signal and that updated "pcmcia.sys" driver is mandatory (SP1 is installed and IMHO may be part of problem). The version of my pcmcia.sys file is 1106 (located in /windows/system32/drivers on XP Home).

Here's another interesting wrinkle....I thought I'd try copying the original XP pcmcia.sys file over the updated file to test my hunch. Well, Win XP's system file protection requires using the recovery console to do so.....somehow, my Dell install prevents me from accessing the recovery console (requires admin password that does not exist>>>my XP Home does NOT have a password and recovery console is supposed to be accesses by hitting enter key when asked for password). I even tried the Microsoft KB fix by installing the recovery console on my hard drive (then comes as boot option). Still no go! Looks like a clean install on the horizon.

Any ideas folks?

ps does anyone know if Dell sells the mini pci nic card for the inspiron 8200? I'm thinking I might go that route and abandon pcmcia.

home network info:

charter cable / linksys befw11s4 / linksys wap11

 

[stebesplace]

IMHO, i belive that you should contact Dell regarding this. May lye with service pack 1. I will look around for some info today, but i need to get some food for now.

-Steve

 

[prosaic]

I don't know whether or not your NIC woes are actually due to SP1, but your issues with logging onto the Recovery Console on an OEM version of Windows XP are very common. It probably won't be fixed unless Dell issues an integrated WinXP SP1 or unless you created a slipstreamed WinXP SP1 CD yourself using the contents of the i386 directory on the hard drive image and the admin SP1 download. If you install clean from the integrated WinXP - SP1 disc you'll be able to use Recovery Console. Otherwise, you're out of luck. That is, if your OEM image is like any number of them (from various vendors) that I've come across. You might want to ask Dell Tech Support, though I wouldn't expect the 1st tier support people to have the answer on this. I normally totally avoid vendor-included OEM versions of Windows and just buy a retail copy and do a clean install. But some specialty systems (like my two video editing systems) won't let you install the the software packages that come with the system over a retail Windows installation. So I went through the process of creating slipstreamed OEM/SP1 discs, and installing those got me a useful Recovery Console on those systems. (I did it because Sony tech support told me that they weren't going to be issuing any WinXP SP1 CDs for their customers.)

Since I didn't see you specifically say so, did you delete (not disable) the NIC AND the PC Card / Cardbus controllers in Device Manager, shut down, remove the NIC physically, reboot to allow redetection and reinstallation of the controllers, and THEN physically insert the NIC? Sometimes this little dance will help Windows re-establish the proper registry mojo to help a NIC behave itself. (If you actually installed a separate set of drivers for the NIC you might want to try to remove those first -- just to see if Windows XP's built-in drivers will work. I haven't had any personal experience with the linksys wireless cards, but I do believe that they have been problematic for some people. I hope you'll get this one sorted out soon.

- prosaic