CF-VDW07 Display

Hi all,
Just acquired a CF-VDW07 Display, sold as a possible "non runner" and bought as such. I have some questions about the power supply for it. From looking on the web it would appear that the 07 uses the same power input plugas a CF28. I have a CF29 charger and a CF28 adaptor cable which I have used to try and power up the 07 display but with no success. Can anyone tell me if the display is capable of being used with no battery fitted and whether ny assumption about the input plug is correct please?
Adrian

 

Adrian,
The CF-VDW07 does indeed use the old style CF-28 and earlier power plug, and it will power up with no battery in the bay, I just checked. You are probably looking at a blown fuse if you are sure you have 15v +/- at the power plug. Thinking about it, check the power socket on the display, given the nature of the hardware, it occurs to me that the socket could easily get broken. Let us know what you find.
CAP

 

Cap,
Thank you for the info and suggestions. I pulled the display apart and found it had been "got at"!
From the power socket there is a short harness which plugs onto CN10 on a PCB, or should do. Mine had been disconnected, for a reason I can only guess at!
Now to get it talking to the CF29..
Many thanks for the help.
Adrian

 

Adrian,
Good for you. Now, before you make yourself crazy, a couple of hints. These displays are gnarly little beasts. If you need manuals, I have them. Look for a thread, a google search will find stuff on the forum more reliably than the forum search function, by "harveya" a countryman of yours. He went to a great deal of trouble getting his display to talk to a CF-28 reliably. You will first need the MeiWDS utility which can be downloaded at Panasonic.ca. with the CF-07 drivers. Get that, read "harveya"s thread, and then come back and we'll get into this in more detail. I'm sure there are answers to be found and there are a couple of other CF-VDW07 owners who will chime in and we will tame the beast. Do some insightful posting so we can use PMs as needed, you need 15 posts to use the PM function.
CAP

 

Cap,
OK, I see what you mean, it is a challange! I have the MeiWDS downloaded and installed along with a couple of .pdf's of manuals. I have followed the instrs but so far it doesn't want to play. I use a Ubiquity XR2 wireless card and software in the 29. I have set up a profile for the CF-VDW07 in the client utility as per the instrs, AdHoc, disabled security and SSID1 as wdsp2. Would the firmware in the display be a factor? It has Vo.50L06 at present. The display has an "output" as Net Stumbler can see it, so at least I know it is broadcasting.
Adrian

 

a google search will find stuff on the forum more reliably than the forum search function

Cap, you just said a mouthfull! the search function here just plain sucks!

I've pretty much given up using it and do as you advise, search google with the words "notebookreview" and what ever you need like "CF-07". there is only a handful of CF-07 posts but you can't get there from here!

 

Moxie,
Thanks for the tip ref notebookreview. I tried using Harveya as Cap said and read that thread. Off now to try your idea.
Cheers,
Adrian

 

Adrian,
I have not yet personally confirmed that you can get the display to work with wifi cards other than the system in the CF-07. "harveya" has and he ended up with the old cisco card doing the trick. I've got a CF-07 apart on the bench at the moment, but am buried with causing trouble I'm not supposed to discuss, taking advantage of some time off to sell a bunch of stuff, and trying to finally get the CF-18 just the way I want it. If Moxie's is together at the moment perhaps he could go into device manager and remind me what wifi card is in the 07. Now I have t go to bed, I was up way too late last night getting into mischief.
CAP

 

Tim,
I got a tracking number on your new hard drive. Its due here tomorrow and I will pack it up with the extras and send it along.
CAP

 

Jeez Skipper, talk about putting a guy on the spot. I bolted it all together and no smoke came out, I had to figure out what my Disney Magic Photo Pass Employee Id number was etc. to get past the log in screen- but I digress.

My CF-07 has a Prism2 802.11 card made by intersil prod ver 1.60; that information was from the software and not my physical inspection of the innards. The driver is ver 0.29.10.0, Prism2 IEEE 802.11 PC card adapter

at first I couldn't get it to connect, ultimately I got it by changing the wireless configuration using profile 3, infrastructure network -not ad hoc

I messed with it for a few minutes to try and get it to connect with my CF-29 but my glass ran out of wine and then my attention drifted. I'll try and get it to connect with the -29 after work tomorrow.

Tim

 

Tim,
Sorry, I didn't mean for you to put it back together! Well now you can take it back apart! You should have the drive and the extras for the weekend.
CAP

 

The story so far.
Well, this display setting up is a challenge! Tried every combination I can think of for both AdHoc & Infrastructure using both Panasonic MeiDWS and the Non version as I am using a Ubiquiti card. Nothing is working. I have ordered a cross over cable so I can update the firmware of the display but seriously doubt that will improve things. I think the next trick will be to try and get it to work with another lappy that has a different wireless card to see if that has any better luck.

 

Magnetomagician,
Well, I will probably have some time to mess with this in the next couple of days. If you haven't got it connected where did you see the firmware? I have one of the Cisco cards and can try that in a CF-29. Wish we had a service manual, if the network card in the display could be replaced we could probably make the connection a lot more reliable.
CAP

 

Cap,
On the display itself if you go: menu, then the version tab it comes up with:
Model # CF-VDW07W
Firmware: V0.50L06
Wireless Contoller: 00.08.03.00
Serial # nothing entered!
Another thought was trying a Cisco PCMCIA card in the 29 but don't have one to hand at the mo. Will try the Tosh lappy and report back.
Adrian

 

I tried to get my 29 to latch on to my VDW07 last night for awhile also. I think I tried all the combination's with out joy. My -29 would see the -07 but I could not get the link up. I hate the wireless utility on the -29- I am going to install the engenious card I have in it and see if that helps any.

I think its right there beyond our grasp- these things do work. I probably won't get to it until saturday. Work seems to be getting in the way with pleasure.

Cheers,

Tim

 

Adrian.

It took a while to get mine working reliably and use of various versions of MEIWDS. Also getting rid of Norton really helped - it really doesn't like adhoc wireless. Even the Panasonic Wireless Display Interface card (basically a Lucent PC24E PCMCIA 802.11a/b card) didn't work reliably (I think my one was a bit duff which was a pain as I waited ages to find one). Eventually got a CISCO Aironet 350 card which is mentioned in the manual for the CF-VDW07 and worked first time out of the box with Adhoc, standard IP Address, SSID and password and the Windows 2000 version of the Panasonic MEIWDS driver.

Now works first time every time. and takes about 8-10 seconds from the driver loading for the first screen to come through to the display.

One thing I do know is that it is very picky about the WLAN interface. It does not work with Netgear, Broadcom built in miniPCI. It worked about 5 times with the Panasonic / Lucent card and very reliably with the CISCO card. I picked up my CISCO card I think it was for £10 plus a couple of £s for shipping from Hong Kong.

 

harveya,
Good to hear from you, I told Adrian you'd probably show up eventually. My VDW07 has been on the back burner as I won't need it again until next fall. But, there are at least 3 of us now working on the problem and I would appreciate your input whenever you get time. For all we know Adrian may live very close to you. Thanks for chiming in. The first thing is the different MeiWDS apps. I was not aware there was more than one. Second, I never thought of the Anti-virus as a possible block to connection.
CAP

 

Cap.

Yes Adrian is not too far from me, I live in Gloucestershire which is anything between 1 1/2 and 3 hours away from North Devon. Will definately try to add anything I can to the debate. One of the things I have found is that you need to get the correct driver and there are a few out there. I can always email the one I have to Adrian if it will help.

Cheers
Andy

 

Hi all,
Thanks for all the help and advice so far. Could you tell me what firmware versions you are all running please? I suspect mine is way behind the times and looking at the Panasonic.ca downloads it does specify a version for making the display work with other models. I suspect this is one thing I must do so have ordered a cable.
As you say Andy, Norton does block this thing as with 360 turned off I can use Netstumbler to see it. As recommended I have now uninstalled it and gone over to onecare. Despite this I have no connection yet but it will be interesting to see what the firmware upgrade does for it.
Adrian

 

Adrian,
My MeiWDS is V.200 L13C M 14. Firmware V2.01L11EM11, Display Model VDW07BHM. This leads me to think I should look for MeiWDS V.2.01L11EM11 perhaps. I'll look around for that tonight. I'm thinking of calling Panasonic tech support as I have a warranty on my CF-30 and maybe that would cover getting it to connect to the VDW07. They're going to love me! I had an old friend who lived in Kingswear Castle across the river from Dartmouth years ago, but I suppose that is a fair bit from where you are.
CAP

 

Cap,
Got the lead today to connect the screen to the 29. I'm going to have a go at updating the firmware later. I can picture the look on the tech support operators face when you contact them, priceless!
Kingswear is in S Devon, I'm 80 miles away in the North of the County, small (but growing larger) village in Bideford Bay called Westward Ho! Strangely enough I have relatives in Kingswear!
Adrian

 

Adrian,
Tell them you know an old friend of Lord Kingswear, the former Sir Frederick Bennett their former MP Is the lead you're speaking of just a serial cable, or is it something special?
CAP

 

Cap,
It's meant to be just a serial cable, but being dumb when I read up the CF-07 info it said a crossover cable so I ended up needing a F/F adaptor to fit it to the 29.
I will mention it, will make them wonder about the circles I am moving in! Shame the paddle steamer Lord Kingswear only lasted a few more years and is no longer running, that was a sight to see.
Adrian
Edit:
Tried the serial cable. No matter what version of the firmware upgrade I use I cannot get the 29 to see the display or vice versa. Went into BIOS to make sure the comm was enabled etc. The last resort now is the Cisco card, trouble is that is an unknown given the firmware edition that is on my display. I think I will pull this thing apart to see what the wireless card arrangement is and whether anything can be done about replacing it.

 

I have a CF-VDW07RFHM display that I have tried on several occasions to get to connect. One problem I was having was installing the software on a Toughbook it would come up with a message that this is only for a Panasonic. lol I found the meiwds software for non-panasonic and tried it and connected first time. This was a unit I was selling so I removed the software and have not used again. I think it also had a Intel 21003b card in it. This has been several months ago so I could be wrong on the card but I know it was an 802.11b only card. It could have possibly been a Cisco 350 since I have a few of those around here. I just saw this thread today and ironically I just recieved a CF-VWLS071U Display Interface Kit today too. I have not opened the software disk yet but the card is a Panasonic branded but has Lucent Technologies PC24E-H-FC PCMCIA card. From my few minutes glancing at the manual it looks like the software is for Win 98, NT or 2000 only, I did not see XP mentioned anywhere. I bought this to use myself but since then I hurt my back and am unable to work on the road like I used too, so I don't really need it to use myself. I wanted to get the kit so I could sell it with all that was needed for somebody to use instead of getting frustrated with it like I have more than once. I may get some time to work with this weekend and I will add anything I find out. I have a CF-29 so I can try this also.

 

Adrian,
When you open it up, carefully unplug the small power connector on one side first.Then gently open it up like a clam shell being very very careful of the 3 ribbon cables on the other side, they are very small. Unplug them, the connectors are the straight in-out type. The wlan card is under the main pcb, I couldn't see it well enough to tell what type it is. I stopped there as I pooched one mother board this week and wasn't up for another. Let me know what you find if you are brave enough.
CAP

 

The drivers for 2000 will probably work with xp




Alex

 

I had an idea that they might. I was going to try anyway.

 

I've got the same unit (does yours have the disneyland software?) I don't have meiwds even running on my -29, the wifi software sees the -07, I just haven't gotten them to connect. In my case its an issue of getting the ip address and netmask to match and I think I will be there. The old intel wifi and now the engenius both see the -07. I think I am close.

I will put the meiwds driver on my-29 and see if that simplifies things.

Cheers,

Tim

 

Thanks for the input guys, it does seem that only certain cards see the 07.
I pulled my 07 apart todayand got down to the WiFi card. The details on it are:
DFUP70982A 94V-0
LUC1257H
The Harris chip has HFA3841CN on it.
The ribbon cable appears to be 50 pin.
A Google of all the above reveals the Harris is a well known/used chip. ogic says the LUC number may refer to Lucent Tech as being the manufacturer of the card/ Given comments about the adaptor it would also help in explaining the 07's reluctance to behave.
Any Tech orientated folk know of another WiFi card that connects via a 50 pin ribbon that could be substituted?
Along with the known connection problems I need to keep in mind that my unit may be faulty given that I found the main power wire disconnected from the PCB inside.
Look forward to hearing how you all get on with your experiments. My next move will have to be to try it with the Tosh lappy I think.
Adrian

 

Adrian,
The Panasonic kit to connect the VDW07 to Panasonic Laptops contains a Lucent/Orinoco/Avaya PC24E-H-PC "WaveLAN" card, an early darling of the Linux crowd. I have one which I will try along with the Cisco 350 in the CF-29 this week. The 29 is a brand new XP install with no apps added. Harveya tried one of these and I believe he had no joy with it. We will lick this, even if I have to spend all day on the phone with Toughbook phone support! They owe me.

 

Adrian.

Cap's right, I have the Panasonic Wireless Interface car (Lucent/Orinoco PC24-E) card which worked a couple of times but then refused to do so anmore. I think to be honest the card is duff. I now use the CISCO which works good there again it was New Old Stock fully packaged.

The other thing is that my screen is running really old firmware and is actually a Japanese market one not the European version. I'll charge it up and read what the firmware was but it is 1.XX so very old.

 

Shazaam! It works

I installed the meiwds driver from the canadian site that is for any panasonic computer. As before I the engenius card in the -29 saw the -07. I kept trying the various profiles and all of a sudden I got a picture.

I suppose you want to know how?

I don't know! it was about 0130, I disconnected it and try to reconnect and I couldn't! I went to bed semi-frustrated but knew I had it by the short hairs. I hit it again this morning. You could see that the units were communicating but were timing out because the -29 could not acquire a IP address. What I noticed was that the -29 and the 07 were both scanning the channels at the same time and the -29 with the new card was scanning a lot more channels out of the capabilities of the -07. So I set the -29 to a channel I knew the -07 was capable of (5) and set the -07's profile to
tcp/ip class "B" and the thing hooked up again!

It really worked well with the engenius card, it was really storming out and I could keep the -07 connected out to 700 ft.

I hope this is some help,I have to run now to catch a plane.

Tim

btw here is the link to the drive I used:
http://www.panasonic.ca/PDP/Software/cfvdw07_firmware_meiwds_upgrade_v200l13.zip

bt-9999

 

Tim,
Great news! That gives me something to work on tomorrow morning.
CAP

 

Hi All,
My evenings frustrations result in the fact that the Tosh won't see the 07 either! Loaded up the non panny MeiWDS version along with NetStumbler with no result. The Tosh has an IntelPro2200 in it, so a completely different animal to my XR2.
Tim, well done with yours, proves it will work on a 29 and may save Tech support from Cap!
Andy, if I threw this display in the post to you would you have time over the next, say, couple of weeks to try it with your 28 to prove conclusively if the thing works at all please?
Adrian

 

I could see the -07 when I had the intel 2200 card in the-29 also. I guess the first step is to check the -07, is it telling you at the bottom of the screen that it is trying to connect and then time out?

I don't have the -07 with me now but from memory I would:
-turn it on
-press the menu button
-press wireless tab
-press the various password set ups and make them blank
-Press wireless set up
-choose adhoc
-try the various tcp/ip a, b ,c b worked for me
-connect
at this point you should see it trying

on the -29 when you do the wireless profile for the -07 enter the appropriate stuff cf-07 xxxxxx
don't forget the password "wcds" or something like that.

When I get home i can step through it when I have it in front of me.

Good luck

 

Tim,
Yes, mine does seem to try and then time out. However I am suspicious of whether it is actually transmitting as aside from a couple of brief times it is not showing up on the wireless sniffing programs on either PC.
The firmware in mine has no option to blank passwords, no profile choices and in the set ups there is only 802.11 and infrastructure, pressing either then gives you a list of settings to use. Your firware is much newer and I have read somewhere on the web that it is the way to go to get older 07's to work.
Adrian

 

Update,
I have 3 pages of step by step instructions from Panasonic support which unfortunately require the Intel Pro Wireless utility to work. I'm installing that later today I hope, I'm getting weird error messages so far and its not working. Please PM me with your emails if you want I've got so far. Includes new MeiWDS application.

CAP

 

Cap,
My only update is I'm getting nowhere with trying to get the comm port to see the 07, even tried a serial to usb adaptor with no luck. Loaded the serial drivers etc etc, nothing! So no firmware update can be done.
I've just won a Cisco Aironet 350 off the Bay, so hope that will be here Tuesday, maybe that will have better luck!
Adrian

 

Adrian.

See how things work with the Aironet, if no dice, happy to have a go with it on my 28. The firmware on mine is V1.00L14, Model is CF-VDW07JS, wireless controller 00.08.03.00. Hopefully however the Aironet will sort it but got to say not confident. The more I hear about theses they seem right tricky bu**ers. That being said, I think once you crack it, they will work no problem.

I see no reason why it should not work with the CF-29, I think at most it will be a Wireless protocol issue with the card. Not sure that the screen implements 802.11a/b adhoc mode completely strictly to the standard. Think that MEIWDS does some tricky things on top of the standard to enable the thing to work.

Cheers
Andy

 

Guys,
I've got Panasonic working on it. We're doing it one laptop model at a time. They don't seem to see any problems, its all at my end just trying to re-install the Intel Pro/Set Wireless app. I just got busy on my CF-18 and cleaning out the shop. Adrian, I haven't messed with the serial port yet, I will ask about that next. We'll get there.
CAP

 

If/when you get it resolved, would one of you mind posting a recap thread on what it took from step1 to complete? It would probably help others tremendously and could be stickied at the top.

 

Paul,
We will indeed. I think we likewise should do it for the CF-18 driver loading which has been, for me at least almost as torturous as your experience with the Taser .
CAP

 

LMAO! Not to kick you while your down, but that HAS been fun reading. I don't mean to get giddy in all your all's pain, but it was neat to see everyone chime in and offer solutions. This really is a great group of guys! And I do agree, we need a write-up of that solution as well. It would be great if someone could sticky some new threads that just highlight problems/solutions at the beginning. Not trying to take any work away from those that have burned the mid-night oil, or those newbs that should be required to do a little legwork, but it could be more efficient and cut down on some pretty redundant Q&A's we have been getting. Plus, I don't think even TB envisioned his site becoming so popular, so fast. This is getting to the size where a little organization might be in order? I sure hope I didn't step on anyones toes with those comments...

Paul

 

Paul,
Fearless leader mentioned that very subject to me the other day. It takes a lot of time and maybe we should each take something we know about and try to put something together. At the very beginning, Modly mentioned trying to keep the F.A.Qs on point so they were not too intimidating for newbies to read. We do have a tendency to wander off topic. I have some time and was thinking about suggesting to Rick that I put together a Driver F.A.Q which we would limit to only posts of new driver sources, no driver questions. That might make it easier for everyone to find the info, and would not limit dialog as odd ball situations like the CF-18 could still get hashed out in their own threads.
CAP

 

Tomcat57 gave me a great link to another forum where the mod had a unique way of getting the FAQ in order. It started as a suggestion thread for each topic and as people replied... He would add stuff to the top thread... As they noodled everything through and discussed the best way to post it... It would go into the first post of the thread. I just haven't had the time to do it yet... I've been in the shop trying to clean up and putting away the parts that have come in and building a few things in anticipation of more laptops coming in the week.

 

Guys,
I got the Aeronet today. The big step forward is that it actually sees the 07, the big step back is that it won't communicate so far. The one thing that is bugging me about my 07 is that in the display where it should show it's serial # it is blank. I can't see anything is missing from inside!!
I'm now going to start trying each different version of MeiWDS that I have to see if I can find one version that will work. Looking at the firmware Andy has though it could be that the secret lies with that and not being able, so far, to upgrade mine is the problem.
Adrian

 

I came across this thread while searching this forum (via Google) for something else related to the CF-07. As this thread didn't seem to reach a resolution, I will mention a few things from my experiences that I don't think have been posted yet. I have preformed several "clean" XP Tablet PC installs on a CF-07 platform that originally ran Windows 98 SE (or something along those lines [that's been awhile]). As info, my MDWD firmware version is V1.00L12 (which doesn't work with some of the newer software out there) and the wireless controller is 00.08.03.00.

Anyway...
- Make sure TCP port 11900 is set as an exception in Windows Firewall (if Windows Firewall is enabled). This can be a real gotcha when things seem to almost work.
- Be careful with Windows Update. I had to rollback to an earlier version of the CF-07 ("brick") wireless card driver/client utility that I had downloaded at the "English" version from Panasonic's US website. Actually, it's hard for me to say exactly what that software is, because it appears to be Spanish. I download the "English" version from Panasonic's website a couple more times just to be sure, but it was definitely not English. This was prior to Panasonic upgrading the driver download section of their US website--the more recent wireless drivers and utilities now out there don't work with my MDWD (though I haven't tried updating the firmware as per the download link listed earlier in this thread). The name is "Red Inalambrica Local ADSL," and I can decipher just enough on the settings dialog to figure out where the MDWD-specific configuration values need to go....