Sierra EM 5625 WWAN help!

I bought a combo GPS/Verizon EVDO sled for my CF29 on ebay. (CF-VEW29V03WAAS) It has the EM 5625 WWAN modem.

I have the GPS working OK, but I'm having trouble with the WWAN portion. I installed the drivers from the toughbook support page, and everything looks good in device manager. (I have a modem device, network adapter, two com ports, and a USB device) However when I launch Sierra Watcher, I get a message "incorrect modem variant has been detected and will not work with this watcher. please verify watcher and modem variants and try again." According to the support page Watcher is the correct software for CF29s. VVZ Access Manager is only for CF19 and 30, but I tried that also. It appears to recognized the card, shows the ESN in the help page, and even shows a signal for BroadBand Access, but when I try to activate it I get a "Activation Failed" message immediately. The ESN is registered with verizon and has a phone number associated with it.

I also tried connecting using Dial Up networking, but get a "remote computer did not respond" error immeadeatly when I try to dial.


I'm guessing I have either the wrong drivers, wrong access manager, or both. Can anyone help me with drivers or software for the Sierra EM 5625? (its not supported any more by sierra)

 

I have some files you can try.... I supposedly have all the available WWAN software... Post your email and I'll try Cap's FTP Yous End It program

 

Thanks... its xxxx

 

There is a BIOS update I may or may not need (they don't seem to know at Support) but I don't have a floppy drive for the media bay. Know where I can borrow one for a day?

 

yes there is a bios update that needs to be done for EVDO support on the CF-29.

go on ebay you can get a floppy for $10.00

 

I just bought a media bay floppy on ebay. I didn't think it would be $11 shipped. Everything else on these toughbooks is so expensive!

I don't know what I did, but now none of my com ports are showing up, including the com 1 and com 3 for GPS. I don't know if something got messed up in bios while I was messing around with this card, but I guess Ill have to wait to try flashing the bios. I have bios 2.50/17 and EC 2.50/15, which I thought was the newest. Guess the EVDO is not included in even that?

 

What MK cf-29 do you have?

Those should be the right ones but maybe try the flash anyway.

Did you activate the ESN with verizon? If not then it has been deactivated by the last owner and it will not work anymore.

Also there maybe a lock on the card so it cannot be changed. There is an option on the software to lock the card.

-James

 

Let's not speak of software or locks until tomorrow. PLEASE!

 

I did get the com ports/gps back up by reinstalling the chipset drivers, and the WWAN modem also showed up again in the device manager without errors.

I have a CF29E (mk2). I registered the ESN with verizon and was issued a number for it under my account. Now here's the weird part- when I talked to Sierra Wireless tech support (they don't normally support OEM products, but I told them I had no other options) they ran the ESN and told me that card was originally configured as Sprint. Pana support said the cards are interchangeable, but their documentation says they are not.

I contacted the guy I bought it from on ebay and he said he may have made a mistake, and for me to send it back for him to test. (without any stickers on the card, I have no idea what it really is). But that would make sense with how it appears to be fully installed, I can query it in device manager and it responds, but when I try to activate it it immediately fails or when I try to connect it says "your device could not be configured for VZaccess".

PS- Toughbook- you seem like you know your stuff about these machines. I'm in Maryland too (frederick). If I can't get this thing working, Ill bring it to you to fix along with a case of your favorite beer for payment!

 

Well the sprint verizon thing might be where the problem is. I thought tho if the esn was not for verizon they would not even activate it.

The seller might have sent a sprint modem and advertised it as verizon as they have both sprint and verizon EM5625 modems.

I had a em5625 and it was sprint.


Just out of curiosity have you tried to load the sprint connection manager and see if it will recognize the card?

-James

 

I was about to, and thats when I lost my com ports so I decided to stop messing with it since the seller offered to take it back and double-check what was going on.