How Do Update The Pretec Cf Oc-wlbxx-a Card?

[neuroshock]

Hey guys,

I've had two of these cards, Pretec Model: OC-WLBXX-A CompactWLAN cards for over a year. I originally bought them off the HSN while they had them on sale.  I was discouraged to find that I was unable to get them to work with my two kids SL-5500's. (I was and still am using the original Crow ROM for their 5500's and support for them was not built in, and at the time my Zaurus/Linux knowledge was still in it's infancy.) Soon thereafter I got myself a SL-6000L and didn't need to use them since it had built-in WiFi already.  So I did the right thing, I purchased two D-Link DCF-660W cards for the kids and put the Pretec cards back in their factory boxes and put them on the shelf meaning to Ebay them or give them to friends that may need them later on.  I then promptly forgot they existed.

Recently I just purchased a C3100 and was faced with needing a new wireless card and remembered them and dusted them off and got them back out.  After a quick search I found out what file to edit etc. to make them work in my daughter's 5500's and now they work like a champ.

While reading through the search results I found out several things. First they are one of the best cards that can be used when considering battery life and signal range (especially if you have a strong connection and are near the AP.) Secondly they are built on the Prism2.5 chipset. Thirdly that everyone recommends "updating the firmware" and using the hostapi drivers.

Over the years I've flashed everything from soup to nuts, CD-RW drives, Video Cards, Motherboards, Sound Cards, etc. etc. etc.  Usually you need a program that can be found on the manufacturers website specifically for that purpose and away-you-go. However I can find no such file of ANY kind related to firmware upgrades for these cards!

So my questions are:

How do I go about updating the firmware on these cards?

Where do I find the program or whatever I need as well as the new flash code etc. to update them?

How do I "use" or "install" the hostapi drivers once I get that done?  (Don't forget the only reason I was able to finally get them working at ALL on the 5500's was that someone had left letter-by-letter detailed instructions for others to follow. I'm stubborn and usually overcome problems out of sheer determination but I'll be the first to admit I'm not too savvy.)

Also exactly what are the benefits to doing all this?  Other posters seem to infer that it may give performance benefits - do they mean connection speed or better battery life? Some hint that it just improves security issues such as WEP encryption but they almost all apparently assume the reader knows enuf to understand. Unfortunately to my dismay I'm obviously one of those ppl who doesn't know enuf....yet.

Last question- can anyone tell me if this card works "out of the box" with Cacko on a C3100?  And if so is there really any point to me updating them at all?

Thanks a billion folks, I value your time and am appreciative that you're willing to spend some of it sharing your knowledge with me!

Take Care,
-NeuroShock

[speculatrix]

you should be browsing the security and networking forums.

lool for anything that says WPA... there's lots of discussion about flashing prism cards. I did it successfully with my ZCF1100.

https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=14610&st=15

[neuroshock]

Thanks for the tip Spec but while there is much talk in those forums "around" the subject, I've not been able to return anything that would reveal how to go aobut updating the firmware.
I WAS however able to find the answers to my other questions and now understand what the benefits would be of updating them etc.  So I very much appreciated your link.  I'm embarrased to say that I don't ever remember having noticed or used the networking forum here before. I'm also befuddled as to why I didn't find that particular thread in my own search queries.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, because I can often search for the exact same thing twice in a row and get different results. (And no i'm not using the Search on the Zug page- I come directly into the www.oesf.org site nowadays.)  But for clarity's sake, I use the "search" found in the upper right corner between "Help" and "Members".  If I wish to search the whole forum I go to the root forum page by clicking on the "OE Forums" link in the top left of the site and then search from there.  This automatically should search EVERY forum if I'm understanding correctly. From there I just enter my search string.  I'd say I get easily repeatable results about 80% of the time.  I've been soo irritated lately at not finding search results and then taking the time to pose a question I have that I honestly couldn't find addressed before on the forums and then having someone point me to a link with results that I ALREADY SEARCHED FOR and came up blank.  It's gotten so bad that I will actually log off the forums and come back a few hours later and try the same search again a few times just to make sure I couldn't find the info from other ppls posts first before posting.

What on earth am I doing wrong?  I'm getting VERY trigger-shy here.

Bewilderingly Yours,

NeuroShock

[speculatrix]

Hi N'Shock

on thinking about it, the problem you want to solve is not clearly documented in one place, so here's a list of things to do.

1) you need new firmware to be written into the card
2) you need the firmware flashing application, which downloads the firmware into the card and makes it permanent in the cards flash
3) you need the computer on which the flashing app runs to have the right drivers to allow the app to control the card and do the flashing
4) you need the right kind of interface on the computer to control the card

starting in reverse order for the points above
4) you can flash in the Z as it has a CF slot, however, I used a laptop with a PCMCIA to CF adaptor; these are relatively rare now that everyone uses a USB card reader, but they're available off ebay for only a few dollars.

3) openzaurus, according to user HRW, has the right drivers to allow reflashing of the card,  however, I ended up using the ones that came with SuSE9.3 linux to do it.
I believe Cacko1.23 also has the right driver code

2) the reflashing application comes as part of the hostap suite. I am pretty sure it is built-in. the prism2srec command is described here:
http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism/

1) the new firmware and information about it is listed here:
https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showt...ndpost&p=100724

----

so, in theory, it's only a few stages

a/ download the zip of the .hex files from http://www.red-bean.com/~proski/firmware/L...t-prism.tar.bz2

b/ unpack the file using the command "cat X.bz2 | tar xf -"

change dir to the directory where the files were put

c/ run these commands on the Z

start the wireless card - see https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showt...ndpost&p=103338

see what the current firmware is
    hostap_diag wlan0

run a test with
    prism2srec -v wlan0 pk* sf*

and if no errors are reported
    prism2srec -v -f wlan0 pk* sf*

wait a while for flashing to proceed... I left it a few minutes just in case! then "cardctl eject", "cardctl insert", and then do the "hostap_diag wlan0" to see if the new firmware took hold.

you might need to use wifi0 not wlan0, I can't remember which I used.

-----
Hope this helps
Paul

[neuroshock]

Good gosh Spec!

The work you just put into that post is definitely one of the kindest things that someone has done on my behalf of the forums here.  It's a one stop info shop of everything I needed to know and had been unable to find.  I'm somewhat stunned by much of what I learned- for example I never would have thought that I might be able to flash it on the Z itself, nor did I let my pea sized brain entertain the thought of flashing it through a Linux OS.  I only went so far as to assume that flashing would only be available through Windows of some flavor as most companies are too lazy to write any flashing executables for anything else.

The GOOD news is that I can do it through either path as I have an easy dozen pc card/pcmcia to CF card adapters laying around here.  So first thing tomorrow I'm going to follow the path of breadcrumbs you've left for me and get it done.  And in doing so I've saved a bunch on having to buy a new CF WiFi card! (Translate that to MORE MONEY TO SPEND ON KIDS CHRISTMAS!.)

Especially in light of my still frustrating search engine flakiness, you've helped me tremendously and I'm truly thankful for that.  The most expensive thing you can spend on anyone is time, and I appreciate the time you spent on me very much!

Your Friend,
Dan

[pgas]

I have flashed this card with the 1.7.4 firmware without a problem.
(in my Z running pdaxrom)

I expect it to work out of the box even wihtout flashing.

I have spent a lot of time to get this card working , until I realized that the problem was that I was to near my AP and that it was working fine just by changing the relative position of the card and of the AP a little bit (my other card was working well in the same position) ....

[speculatrix]

The work you just put into that post is definitely one of the kindest things that someone has done on my behalf of the forums here.  It's a one stop info shop of everything I needed to know and had been unable to find.  I'm somewhat [div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=105853\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Thanks, Dan for your kind words.

I figure we're all in this handheld linux game together, all swimming against the tide, but I see the efforts you yourself particular make to help and encourage, and am pleased to help you.

I'd previously spent a lot of time trying to get WPA to work, a lot of blind alleys, bought a 2nd wifi card unnecessarily believing it would do WPA when my original cheapo one worked fine. It was probably four months on and off wondering why WPA didn't work, and in the end it was only a few hours to reflash and get WPA configured to work. It's good to stop other's from going through the pain!

[loc4me]

Neuroshock,

To answer your question about seaching, i find the best way to search is to use the search link that is just below the large blue banner of "OE Forums" it should be in between "help" and "members" up in the top right hand corner. This is the link directly to it.

-Mark