CF-30 new build ... bios and other questions .

hey all ,

i am putting together a '30 ... no idea what OS was on it originally but i loaded vista business on it ... key on bottom accepted .
bios : V2.00L15
EC : V2.00L14

are these correct/compatible with vista ?

have loaded all of the drivers i can but am having trouble getting the wireless lan to work .
it does not show on in "device manager" .
the board is the factory intel 4965AGN/MM1
in the bios it shows "wireless turned on" ... the wlan power switch/light is solid green ... windows says "no wireless cards detected" (or words to that effect) .
the card is getting warm (above MB temp) so it is powered up .
i was beginning to wonder if the card or slot is bad .

for something to try , i installed a dell/broadcom 1395 card (hey , it is what i had on hand) ... windows seen it as a new device and prompted me for the software/drivers .
it even identified the card (enumerated it) correctly ... so the power and (hopefully) the slot are ok .
i have downloaded the software/drivers from dell and am about to install them .

barring a pooched intel wireless card ... what can i do to test the original card ... or did i miss something along the way with the drivers ?

edit ... the drivers from dell were rejected .

 

ok ... i swapped the wireless card for the one in my other '30 ... windows found it and installed the software/drivers ... works fine ... it is a "pro" version .

i placed the *questionable card* in my '30 and it found it but the drivers were wrong ?
the questionable card does not say "pro" on it .
i wonder ... hmmm ... time to double check the drivers .

 

A WLAN card from a IBM/Lenovo or HP will NOT work....

Please post full model num,bers of any Toughbook you ask about..It helps us a lot.

Do some online research and find what model the original card was from that particular CF30 and mark..Toughbooks are very finicky about what cards will work..They whitelist them in BIOS.

 

Here is a link for the driver only package for 32bit Vista.
You don't need the Proset package

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/confirm.aspx?httpDown=http://downloadmirror.intel.com/21029/eng/Wireless_14.3.0_Dv32.exe&Lang=eng&Dwnldid=21029

 

I have found that you need to download and install the latest wifi drivers to make older OS's work with the WLAN...

 

shawn , the software at the link worked .
i just don't get it ... i ran the latest software version from the panasonic site .

the two cards are 4965AGN ... the difference between them is that the one in my '30 has the word "pro" on it .
i do not know if that makes any difference .
i have let windows check for newer drivers (risky at times) , there are none showing .

on to the next stage !