firmware update for Senao cards

[georgew]

I have been purchasing senao cards for a while, and each time I've been told that the shipment was delayed because they had to test and update the firmware ofd the cards before shipping them to me.

The last batch came in quickly... because they did not update the firmware. Now I understand why they were doing this... the cards can only be used as clients with the stock firmware.

No problem, just update the cards.... that is easier said than done. I have found no documentation, only the firmware and the update utility.

The update utility has a installer written in a foreign character set, so I get a box with nothing readable, and two buttons. Clicking the first button installs the software. However nothing happens when I run the software.

I see clues that the drivers must be loaded, so I do that... the cards work fine... but the updater still won't run. When I launch it, the hourglass comes up for a second or two, and that is all it will do.

So can someone provide a pointer to how to perform the firmware update?

I have three firmware versions, one is a client only, one is an AP only, and one does both functions. The firmware is in the expected dual files, primary and secondary firmware... but having those files is not enough obviously.

Has anyone here updated the firmware in their senao cards? If so what did you use, and how did you do it?

I would just contact the vendor I bought them from, but Netgate's DNS server is down, so I can't send them email.


George

[tony]

It has been reported that this firmware will update the Senao cards.

http://www.demarctech.com/downloads/reliawave-zm/prism25-156.zip

Thanks!

[georgew]

Ok, here is the problem I'm having....

I've got ME running on my laptop... (yes, I hate ME too, but do you really expect me to run XP?)

For some reason, any virsion of the so-called Intersil OEM firmware updater I try to run simply won't run. I start them, no window opens, no process shows up on the running-programs bar... nothing. The hourglass shows for 10 seconds, then nothing.

Process Explorer shows the firmware updater running, but it has consumed no cpu, it is just sitting there, like it is waiting for windows to open the window. I'm sure this is a ME problem.

Anyway, I've read about another windows updater called autoupdate.exe or something like that, and it does a probe and update upon boot, without requiring ME to display a window. Does anyone have a copy of this updater? Anyone know why the intersil updater won't work under ME?


I've lost a whole day of work on this.... I suppose I could buy a new laptop...


George

[dkii]

get some more ram(~256mb) and install win2k on the laptop. It's by far the best and most stable version of windows that supports PnP that I have yet to use. ME is the absoulte worse version, I'd rather run 95/98 than ME. XP will have it's day in about a year or so after microsoft fixes the bugs. For 2k, go hunt down sp2 and install it instead of SP3. SP3 seems to have really slowed down my system. I know all of us have worked with computers, I personally worked for a retail computer vendor for 3 years doing nothing but repairing hardware/software on both residential and commercial computers, and I noticed a few things: If it bluescreens on a fresh install, or is having other similar bluescreens/program errors either the ram is bad(not likely) or it's an AMD or Cyrix processor(very likely). The durons however seemed to hold up fairly well. I haven't had any experience with the XP series of processors though. If it's an intel machine and having similar problems, it most likely has windows ME on it, is an e-machine, or all the aboce. Dump ME and get rid of the AMD and it fixed 90% of the problems. Not all installations of ME are bad, and not all AMD processors are bad, I've ran across a few of both that worked just fine, but an overwhelming majority of the problematic computers I worked on had one or the other or both.

[bobbyc]

Loading the drivers for the senao card can be tricky. On my desktop, I got it to load with the drivers/setup program from netgate.com. On my laptop, that's a different story. It loaded, but I don't know where it got the drivers from... and winupdate doesn't recognize the card. The card ID on my laptop is: "Red Inalambrica Local 802.11b WLAN PC Card".
Don't know wehre it got that from. Different than my desktop.
Anyways, if you can get past all that, then I suggest you get the firmware and updater from netgate.com and not demarctech.com . Netgate has firmwares 1.1.1/1.5.6, while demarctech has 1.1.0/1.4.9.
Bob C

EDIT:
I just saw on the netgate FAQ page that they have a solution for the "RED Inalambrica" problem, and that they got rid of the 1.1.1/1.5.6 firmware for some reason.
http://www.netgate.com/help2.html

[georgew]

Thanks for the help...

This laptop (dell inspiron 8000) has been a pain in the ass since day 1. Everything was semi-broken, and as I have fixed things, other things would break as a result. For example, the modem/ethernet never worked untill I was willing to live with a buggy video driver. I've heard horror stories from people trying to install a new OS on this model laptop... and I /wish/ I could run '98...

I got the super-hires screen, and the video card does not have 98 support... that has been the main source of most problems. People with the standard inspiron video don't have my problems...

I had an idea, and spent some time trying to get my stylistic 1000 running, so I could use it to install the firmware updater... but I can't get the card drivers to work under '95, and netgate says not to try it... It is good to see the netgate name servers are on the net again... Their nameserver IP's were unroutable for a couple days.

Building a new machine is going to be easier than trying to reinstall my laptop... I can't afford the time I'll need to sink into it to get everything working again.


George

[georgew]

What a pain!

FYI the 7.0 updater refused to put the dmarc firmware onto the Senao card. Of course with netgate back up, I have their firmware.

But I should say this was a painful exercise. What I found is I cannot update the firmware if I connect the dots. I can install the card software and drivers, then reboot with the pc card in. Windows goes through the "installing the software for your new hardware" thing, then asks you to reboot.... DON'T DO IT! The firmware on the card is too old for the driver, and your machine will only bluescreen any time you try to access the pc card. When the PNP code attaches the drivers for the first time, BEFORE you reboot because you were told to, you can flash the cards. If the system is rebooted with the crappy old firmware, nothing will work, and your whole machine will be unstable. By skipping the suggested boot, I was able to upgrade several cards, going through the stop card routine before pulling the card of course.

If I reboot the machine, nothing will make the driver attach to the card, you must do it in the right order... and then you can update multiple cards. Do it in the wrong order, and nothing will ever work.

I don't know what the problem is exactly, but the current driver is totally incompatable with the old firmware and will make the machine unstable.

I did my work under two different win98 machines, reinstalling one of them just to be sure.

The bottom line is this is a huge pain. I know how to do it now, but I have to defy the suggestion to reboot to make it work.

So what I have learned from this is I probably need old drivers if I want this to work smoothly. The drivers don't tell you anything useful, when you boot with old firmware you get a dialog saying that the hardware isn't working and may need to be reinstalled.

The bottom line is this is tricky, a pain in the ass... and if you want to do a volatile firmware update for prism AP's, you have my vote.

If there isn't room for a volatile copy of everything that might be useful, then perhaps you need to write a firmware updater... something that boots, looks at the cards plugged in, and updates them if needed. I would load that on a cf card and boot every new machine from it first. If you wanted to you could add site survey code to it to, make it the swiss army cf card. Even though a site survey tool and flash updater are pretty simple, hardly as useful as staros itself, I'd pay to have that tool available... it's worth a couple hundred bux to have something that works...

Does anyone have any really old prism drivers?

George