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ignoramus
@sunlife.com

ignoramus

Anon

Linksys WPC11 v1 firmware

I ignorantly flashed my WPC11 v1 PC card with the newest v3 firmware and it no longer works. I contacted Linksys support and they say that there is no firmware for this particular card. I refuse to believe that and was wondering if anyone here can point me to an area where I can find this firmware.

Thanks.
JohnC9
join:2001-09-19
Union City, CA

JohnC9

Member

The WPC11v1 does have firmware. It's not from Linksys. The firmware is generic. I'll see if I still have it.

A much bigger problem is that with the wrong firmware in your WPC11, it's likely dead anyway regardless of whether you can get the correct firmware or not.

-John

ignoramus
@sunlife.com

ignoramus

Anon

Thanks, John. Even though I may have fried the card, I'd still like to try to salvage it. Please advise if you find the code.

DrTCP
Yours truly

join:1999-11-09
Round Rock, TX

DrTCP to ignoramus

to ignoramus
Does Windows recognize your card and install a driver? If it recognize the card but does not function properly you might be able to use Prism Windows based update utility to fix the firmware.

Prism based cards have Primary and Secondary (Station) firmware. It is possible that only secondary is updated incorrectly. If so you might be able to update the card using Prism Windows flash update utility.

Download the following utility from Prism and see if it recognize your card. If it does you can use Windows flash update utility.

»www.intersil.com/design/ ··· l322.exe

ignoramus
@sunlife.com

ignoramus

Anon

Thanks for the url but it does not contain the flash update utility. In running the Prism test utility, I can see the card in the adapters list but get an "open failed on adapter" message - i.e. the driver is not valid.

I'd still like to try flashing the card if possible so if you can provide the winupdate utility, that would be great.

DrTCP
Yours truly

join:1999-11-09
Round Rock, TX

DrTCP

I did not give WinUpdate.exe on purpose. First, WinUpdate is not public. But you can find it on many manufacturer's website if you seach google

However, the fact that Prism test utility cannot open your card means WinUpdate will not be able either. I gave this utility to see if there was any access from Windows.

You will need Prism DOS based utility which is even harder to get. I used the DOS utility to resurrect a dead Prism 2 card after a bad flash.

The following is a link to old Hawking WE110P driver package includes DOS utilities (see romcode directory). This is the only place I found these utilities. I think it was left there by mistake (lucky for me)

»www.hawkingtech.com/down ··· e110.exe

Unfortunately there is no documentation. I figured out the use of these utilities for a dead card of my own but I cannot guarantee that it will work for you.

There are some .bat files that you can use for "model" only as they are basically crafted for hawking cards. Do not use them!

First make a bootable DOS floppy. Copy the romcode directory contents to the floppy and boot from the floppy.

Legacy.exe is needed to get PCMCIA card services installed. You must run this after booting. It will hopefully recognize your PCMCIA chipset and card. If not you cannot recover on that PC.

You also need to know if your card is a 3v or 5v card. I believe Linksys cards are 5v. There are really few 3v PCMCIA cards around. Proxim RangeLan-DS cards are 3v for example.

Flash.exe is the DOS flash utility. If you just run the program with -? option you can get some information on options.

flash.exe -?

The .hex files are firmware files. The ones in the directory they are for Prism 2 cards only. While you can find Primary and Secondary firmware for Prism 2.5 and Prism 3.0 cards by searching the internet, I have not seen any RAM resident Initial firmware for Prism 2.5/3.0. I am not sure if the initial firmware would work for Prism 2.5/3.0. I have not tried. (I might try one day because it is ram resident and should not harm). You said you had Linksys v1 card. So, it should be Prism 2 card (Linksys v2.5/3.0 are Prism 2.5/3.0 respectively)

The .pda files are manufacturer related card information (like MAC address etc). If you have a working card you can retrieve PDA information using the Windows Flash Utility.

I assumed my PDA information on the card was still OK and just uploaded the firmware and it worked for me. You might need a valid PDA from a working like card and override the MAC address with -m (or -MP or -MI options) to the correct one.

To resurrect the card you need to download ram resident initial firmware to the card. Since this step does not require any working firmware on the card it should work. Initial firmware files are I*.hex. Since I remembered the primary firmware version of my dead card was P40003C0.HEX before the upgrade I used I40003C0.HEX as initial firmware to download. The command was:

flash -5v -i I40003C0.HEX

Again voltage is important. At this point the LED on card would become active again. First sign of life! If it does not work unplug the card and try again using the other initial firmware. In my experience most Prism 2 cards use P4*.HEX firmware so this will most likely work.

Next, you need to download Primary (P*.HEX) and Secondary (S*.HEX) firmware to the card flash using the initial firmware just downloaded. Again there are two types of Primary firmware on the floppy. If you used I4*.HEX you should use P4*.HEX. If you used I1*.HEX you should use P1*.HEX.

flash -5v -g -d P40003C0.HEX
flash -5v -g -d S10007C6.HEX

After this you can remove the card.

Use vendor supplied firmware upgrade utility to to bring secondary firmware up to date. Or search the internet for later secondary firmware.

You could use later secondary firmware with DOS based utility but I suggest you use either vendor firmware upgrade utility or proceed with Windows based utility for that because I know it does model checking with firmware and will not allow Prism 2.5/3.0 firmware on Prism 2 card or vice versa. You can find this by searching as well.

As final remark, I'll just write down the Prism 2 secondary firmware files that I found available on the Internet.

S10006C2.HEX - Very old. Do not use (Upgrade immediately)
S10007C6.HEX - Very old. Do not use (Upgrade immediately)
S10008C2.HEX - Very old. Do not use (Upgrade immediately)
S10008C3.HEX - Good. Most Prism 2 cards.
S1010304.HEX - Recommend for Windows XP. Not recommended for Linux HostAP use.
S1010409.HEX - Hard to find. (I believe it has functionality comparable to Prism 2.5/3.0 card firmware SF010409.HEX)

Good luck!
jgrn307
join:2003-04-22
Napa, CA

jgrn307

Member

Has anyone successfully done this? I think I might have the same problem (firmware updates are failing, card isn't working) -- can i run the flash.exe program from within XP, or do I have to boot to DOS (I can't find my floppy drive! can i make a bootable CD?)

ProtoFrag
@mchsi.com

ProtoFrag to ignoramus

Anon

to ignoramus
Hey I did the same thing! It really pisses me off that it automatically updated the firmware and just fried my card! Im gonna try linksys tomorrow and ask them what the deal is! that huge message just sounds like too much of a headache to do.
ProtoFrag

ProtoFrag

Anon

Ok, after calming myself down i realized i could follow some instructions. Ok, it could open mine and didn't fail. So i believe i need winupdate.exe. I searched google and i didnt get many official looking sites and am hesitant to jsut going to them and picking it up. If you could provide a link possibly that would be really awesome! Thanks!

No_Strings

join:2001-11-22
The OC

No_Strings

You may find interesting reading here: »www.komacke.com/archive/ ··· 034.html

DrTCP
Yours truly

join:1999-11-09
Round Rock, TX

DrTCP

It looks like my post has been useful for some more people to recover the Prism cards that has gone bad during flash update. I've found the following site that refers to the information I've given regarding DOS mode flash utilities.

Here is the quote at »linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism
quote:
Raffaele Raf described DOS-based flashing experience in his "success story" series. (Thanks to Elias Tsigoyannis, you can read the file in pdf format)
Here you can also find the original, my hand-edited raw text version).