WIFI Card from CF-74 to CF-19

i came across a CF-74 MK3 for super cheap. i bought it just for the wifi card to put in my cf-19 MK1. i've tried using the instructions from this thread ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=425980) on hooking it up, but i still have no luck. i got it to show up in W7, drivers updated and everything, but it will not show networks for anything. i have tried swapping the white and black wires around on the card, still nothing. the CF-19 i bought used from a previous govt company, and they purchased it without a WLAN card.

am i missing something that i didn't read about on that thread?

 

Safe to assume the obvious actions have been done:

- Turn on wifi in BIOS (I am on my 74 now and I think the BIOS still has the enable)

- Turn on wifi on the switch behind the handle

- You said drivers are correct?

- You checked the box for Windows to manage your wireless networks?

Not trying to dumb down here, just making sure the small items are done....

 

yes i downloaded the drivers from the intel site for W7 32bit, it shows up in device manager fine once drivers were installed.

it's the 19 i'm having troubles with. the card worked fine in the 74. it's just saying no networks can be found. i dunno maybe i wired the antennas up wrong.

 

Hi! may I know where did you installed the wi-fi card. You can only acess the wi-fi slot(pcie) by opening the whole buttom not on a rectagular slot that you can access outside and that it for WWAN.


ohlip

 

yeah i did that one time before i found this forum and figured out there was another slot. i have it in the correct spot (i have the case open in front of me right now). it sees it as being active under network and sharing, but it just doesn't show up any networks.

for the antenna spots (looking at the service manual) it shows the white one going to the card and under the mobo, a gray one from the card to some thing in the middle, and a black wire attached to the middle piece going under the mobo. is the gray one from the card supposed to be there?

the card has 3 places to hook antennas

 

is the wire that goes from the NO 1 pin next to the black wire required?

 

anyone? if it's necessary, can i solder together two ends from the wifi cords of another laptop?

 

What OS are you running? If its W7, you first need to disable the wireless switch in the bios, then uninstall the wireless switch utility in W7. Reboot and your wifi card should work. Then re enable the wierless switch in the BIOS but do not install the wireless switch utility.

Hope this helps.

Disable "wireless switch" not wifi.

 

windows sees the card, and it says it's working properly, i just can't get ANY signal or even see any networks. it's just like it doesn't work. although i never had the wireless utility installed, just the drivers for the intel card, i tried your steps. i disabled it, rebooted, checked everything (windows still recognizes the card), rebooted and enabled it, restarted, and still nothing.

EDIT: Im using W7 Home Premium. and are you talking about the Panasonic wireless switch utility?

 

yes the wireless switch utility. that need to be uninstalled.

 

ok just making sure. that was never installed when i setup windows

 

can you take screenshots of your:
Device Manager
Network and sharing center
Manage network connections folder
Adapter settings
and your list of installed programs (in add/remove prg)
list of services running in the background

 

here's most of the shots

 

and the rest. not sure which properties you wanted for the adapter

 

Is this a software issue
Whats Virtualbox host?
Has some add-on networking software application fouled things up


Alex

 

no that's the Sun VirtualBox. i just installed it last night. i installed the wifi card a couple weeks ago.

 

Go to Start>and type "cmd" in the box and hit enter.
Then run "ipconfig /all" and post that screen shot as well. You could be having an IP subnet problem which would block wireless connectivity. It should be installing default number, but I have seen weird stuff like this happen before where the subnets did not match.

 

never heard of a subnet issue not allowing a wifi card to get signal

 

I know on some of the earlier intel wifi cards, they would get no signal without both the main and aux antennas connected.

I'd suggest moving the black coax to jack 1 on the card. The small board it is connected to is the breakout for running an external antenna through the docking station. By connecting it directly to the WiFi card, you are simply bypassing the breakout, and connecting directly to the antenna

nine

 

gave it a shot. still nothing. i even attempted to make my own coax jumper out of some parts from an old laptop i had. i soldered the cables together and wrapped it carefully. still nothing.

 

I also see your wireless is showing up as A/G and G. Is your wireless router rated for G? I know on my home PC I have it cabled but I also have a wireless G card but cannot connect to my wireless through that because the router is not rated for G. Could this be your problem as well?

As a side, I helped a friend with his wireless a few years back and he was able to connect, but not browse the network or internet and it turned out he was assigned the wrong subnet. So I know it would affect that, but was just shooting in the dark on whether it would completely block the ability to connect. It all looks fine on that though for you. Maybe Mnem or Rob can look at those screen shots and see something I am not.

 

yes it's rated for g. i use a belkin pcmcia wireless g card for it right now because i can't get the internal card to work.

 

update anyone? i really wanna get this card to work. and i want to stop the BSOD at startup for an IRQ error. haha

 

I know this problem... I had this issue when I upgraded my CF-30 to WIFI N (From ABG intel card). See here:

http://toughbooktalk.com/public_downloads/CF-30 Upgrade to 802.11N Intel 4965 Fix/READ ME.txt

and here for pics: http://toughbooktalk.com/public_downloads/index.php?dir=CF-30 Upgrade to 802.11N Intel 4965 Fix/

Give it a shot!

 

it doesn't always show up as disabled. just shows up with no signal. i'll give it a shot though. thanks!

 

looking at your pictures, do you have the black wire on number one and the white on number 3? i can't tell if the middle wire is white or gray.

 

ok so i tried putting tape over it (i know i got it centered correctly, i had it under a magnifying glass). no luck. i also switched the wires like your pictures shows.

i don't get this, it shows up as working, not disabled, just can't see my wireless network that's 2 feet away. i really just wanna get rid of the belkin pcmcia wifi card sticking out the side

 

Do you have both the Intel and Belkin cards in at the same time? Also, do you have the Belkin wifi program installed? Are you using Windows to configure your wireless or the Belkin program? Since I have not used W7, I am not sure on this next comment, but does it still use the wireless management in services, and if so, is it enabled?

 

No whenever i try to do something that relates to the internal card, i always take out the belkin card to see if it will connect. i just use the belkin card when i'm just casually browsing.

belkin software is not installed, just the drivers.

and yes i'm using windows to configure it. the service is called WLAN Autoconfig
and it's started.

 

OK, now this is really getting perplexing. Just curious, I know that the card shows in the device manager, and it appears to be working (just not picking up the network), but do you know for a fact that the card is good? Do you have, or can you get, another card to plug in and try? Desperate times and all that you know....

 

This is a kind of a dumb(ish) suggestion... But it happened on my wife's CF-18. I was playing around with her wifi setup when it had an Intel card installed. It was giving me problems so I turned it off in the BIOS. I then swapped in an Engenous card and booted up and loaded the software. It seemed that XP would see the card but not connect. I had to put the old card back into the CF-18, re-enable wifi in the BIOS and THEN the card worked.

I don't know what you did prior to the swap.... Just a consideration...

 

the card was working when i pulled it from the 74. i guess i'll have to suck it up and take apart my other 74 that i use regularly just to give it a try.

 

so i held off on taking apart my other 74. what i did do was return the card to it's original 74 and loaded it up. wireless works perfectly. put it back in the 19, grabbed a different harddrive, and installed vista business. same issues, card shows up as working but does not see any networks. so it's the exact same with W7 as with Vista Business

 

so anyone got another suggestion?

 

I'm still thinking that there is a problem in the 19 with the radio, either it is not coming on, or there is a problem with it that will not allow it to function. From what you have done, the card appears to be fine, so somewhere in the 19 lurks the problem. Were those screenshots from the 74 or the 19?

 

screenshots were from the 74 to show it was working with just the intel card and nothing else.

so here's what i've done so far: i triple checked the 19 to make sure everything was there internally (i took off the sides of the lid to make sure the antennas were there, and everything else i put up pictures of the inside and all the cables i had). antennas are there and everything (seems) to be wired right. laptop came from govt agency that originally had it setup for no wireless (hence why i have to use a belkin pcmcia card)

tried both windows 7 home premium and windows vista business on the 19 with no luck.

put the card into it's original owner (CF-74 MK3) with vista business intalled. works perfectly.

tried covering up the 2nd pin on the 2nd row of the card and adjusting the wires according to previous post. did not work.

no wireless switch utility, no 3rd party software managing connections, bios enabled, subnets are correct, windows is up to date, drivers are up to date for the intel card (and are the windows 7 version).

what could i be missing?

 

is the next step to try another 19 of the same series with this card and same setup? i have access to another 19 exactly like this one if it's necessary. i'm sure the guy will let me give it a shot.

 

Yes, that would be next, but I would prefer you trying it in another CF19 that ISNT exactly the same. We had some posts a while back regarding government toughbooks and the inability to get wireless working on them and the thought was that even though it shows in the BIOS, the BIOS was thought to have been 'altered' to prevent the GI from installing wireless on their own thereby compromising some sensitive government information or networks. This was all conspiracy theory mind you, but now maybe making some sense. If it works in another, non-compliant CF19, then maybe your answer would be as simple as a BIOS reflash?? MNEM, any thoughts here? Teo?

 

well that's a problem because i know of only one guy with a 19 and it's same style as mine. what would i reflash the bios with? i've redone them (both for downgrade to xp and upgrade to vista) from the panasonic website.

and as a thought, if someone wouldn't want a laptop to be able to have wireless at all, why not jack up the pcmcia slot too? i mean it's easier to put in a wireless card or a usb stick. after all, that's what i'm using.

 

bump... it's been a while with no luck

 

someone please help me with this...

 

Ok! its a dumb question. Did you manually switch "on" the wireless switch on the PCMCIA area? There is a manual switch there opposite to SD slot to turn it OFF and ON.


ohlip

 

all dumb questions welcome

and yes, i made sure to switch it on

 

so... i was browsing through the tb configurator tonight, and was curious about something. attached shows what my model number came up with. it has me wondering: if they specify the processor selection as "Federal Only : No Wireless" does that mean that i'm screwed as far as using the mini-card?

 

No

I have the same model and added the wi-fi
I am just tied up for a while reloading a cf-30 but I will check tomorow what card and settings that are in my cf-74 federal model


Alex

 

the Intel card came from a CF-74 Federal model, but it was a wireless-enabled configuration. CF-19 was a Federal model, but from a different company for different tasks.

 

So you have the same model 19?

 

Oops, no I am confused I have a normal cf-19 and a federal cf-74

But just to be sure in my mind on this , you are trying the wi-fi card in the internal m-pcie slot , not on the wwan m-pcie slot that you access from the small removable cover


Alex

 

yes on the internal slot. when i first started trying to get this card to work, i had it in the WWAN slot, but then i found this forum and quickly learned my ways

 

Have you tried a known working regular card like an average Intel or Engenous card? This may be some weird Intel reversal backlash, forward to the past type thing. (We won't mention the "Bill Gates" factor!)

Try it with a known good (different) card.... Don't keep beating your head against the same rock! Wifi cards are dirt cheap, good ones are easy to get and are also cheap. REALLY good ones go for a whopping $40.... (Cheap too)