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    Installing a mini-pci wireless adaptor

    Discussion in 'Toshiba' started by cdburn, Sep 18, 2003.

  1. cdburn

    cdburn Newbie

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    I recently purchased a Dell 1300 Truemobile mini pci card to install in my Toshiba 1905-s303. The installation went smoothly and it appeared that windows and my computer had no conflicts with the install. The drivers seemed to have loaded just fine, but my computer will not allow me to enable the device. When I press fn-F8 (that enables the antena on my PC) a window is displayed reading "There is no Build-in wireless LAN." When I perchased my computer a mini pci card was available for wireless internet so I thought that meant that I could upgrade this option myself. So what I am wondering is if someone has figured out how to solve this problem if possible at all. It seems that maybe the problem is that I need a toshiba specific mini pci card, or that something needs to be done to the bios or some alterations to the registery need to be made to make the computer capable of enabling the antena feature that is already installed but disabled. If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated.

    cdburn
     
    cdburn, Sep 18, 2003
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  2. Andrew Baxter

    Andrew Baxter -

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    The problem with buying two pieces of hardware from different manufacturers, especially ones that compete, is that they'll both put their finger at the other guy and say it is something wrong with their equipment and not what they made. IMHO you should try and return the Dell mini pci card and purchase a Toshiba card or some card made by a more generic brand that doesn't make notebooks (linksys, microsoft, netgear) and see how that works. I don't have any specific solution for the problem you have though. sorry!

    /andrew
     
    Andrew Baxter, Sep 18, 2003
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  3. cdburn

    cdburn Newbie

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    Thanks for the input abaxter. Yeah, I'm sure you are probably right. The good thing is that I still have 20 days to return the card to dell, so maybe I'll contact toshiba and see what they have to say. (I'm sure nothing that will help...) Sounds like good advice getting a product from a non-competeing company. Thanks again.

    cdburn
     
    cdburn, Sep 18, 2003
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  4. Mike

    Mike Newbie

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    You could try the latest bios flash on the laptop, and maybe some firmware on the radio card... I'm currently deploying wireless at the hospital where I work and while the wireless will be pure cisco, a lot of the devices that the nurses & software people want to use aren't full cisco LEAP compliant. So, I'm going to be trying to install mini-PCI cisco NICs in everything they buy regardless of the mfg.

    I'd be interested if you have any luck with the current card or a different one you buy in the future.

    mike C.
     
    Mike, Sep 30, 2003
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