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To: fedora-list@redhat.com From: gayleard@eircom.net Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:54:15 +0000 Subject: RE: Wireless (again)
Da Rock wrote:
Useful no doubt, but no answer to the question that was actually raised, which was how one could find the chipset in a WiFi device.
Try looking at the wifi(wireless) card. I mean take it in your hand and look at it. Do you notice anything?
I have two PCMCIA WiFi cards in my hand. One is named "Orinoco Gold" and the other "Vivanco WLAN PCC 54". I notice two things about them:
Neither has any mention of the chipset it contains
Neither has any obvious way of seeing what is in the card,
short of destroying it.
What did you think I would notice, as a matter of interest?
- You should see a version or product number (may be in small print, so
put on your glasses and look). 2. You should see a serial number.
Sigh. I do see the product number on the card (not the firmware version, since I have upgraded this). I do see the serial number.
I DO NOT SEE THE CHIPSET.
Well then, thats what you should look up. Between that and what you get from the dmesg and other utilities mentioned throughout this thread by others you should determine the chipset.
Thats the point of this discussion. YOU need to find the info, the helpers can only guide you where to look. And if they don't know then you need to solve the problem yourself- believe me I know, I have to build a driver for a hybrid tv card for FreeBSD because there simply is no solution. And I don't know how to build drivers- but if I start others will then help.
The way you're responding is not conducive to others helping you here. Be not so abrasive and others will actually want to help you- up till now you've been biting the hand. _________________________________________________________________ Your Future Starts Here. Dream it? Then be it! Find it at www.seek.com.au http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fninemsn%2Eseek%2Ecom%2Eau%2F...
Da Rock wrote:
Thats the point of this discussion. YOU need to find the info, the helpers can only guide you where to look. And if they don't know then you need to solve the problem yourself- believe me I know, I have to build a driver for a hybrid tv card for FreeBSD because there simply is no solution. And I don't know how to build drivers- but if I start others will then help.
That's easy. Peruse the existing drivers, looking for likely candidates and choose one.
rename it, rip out the obviously irrelevant bits, make sure what's left still works then start adding bits.
Never ever ever write a program from scratch if you can modify an existing one to do the job,
Depending on your goals, choosing a driver that works on FreeBSD and Linux might be helpful.
running under xen 3.2 might be helpful too, check whether it can give access to a particular PCI device. Anything that saves boot time is good.
Da Rock wrote:
Useful no doubt, but no answer to the question that was actually raised, which was how one could find the chipset in a WiFi device.
Try looking at the wifi(wireless) card. I mean take it in your hand and look at it. Do you notice anything?
I have two PCMCIA WiFi cards in my hand. One is named "Orinoco Gold" and the other "Vivanco WLAN PCC 54". I notice two things about them:
Neither has any mention of the chipset it contains
Neither has any obvious way of seeing what is in the card,
short of destroying it.
What did you think I would notice, as a matter of interest?
- You should see a version or product number (may be in small print, so
put on your glasses and look). 2. You should see a serial number.
Sigh. I do see the product number on the card (not the firmware version, since I have upgraded this). I do see the serial number.
I DO NOT SEE THE CHIPSET.
Well then, thats what you should look up. Between that and what you get from the dmesg and other utilities mentioned throughout this thread by others you should determine the chipset.
Look, you said I would see the chipset on the card. I DON'T SEE THE CHIPSET ON THE CARD. I've NEVER seen the chipset on any WiFi card.
Thats the point of this discussion. YOU need to find the info, the helpers can only guide you where to look.
I don't need to find any info. I know everything I want to know about all the WiFi devices I have. I don't want to know their chipsets.
SOMEONE ELSE asked how you could find the chipset. Various people, including you, gave answers to this. I simply pointed out that your answer - that the chipset is given on the card - is utter nonsense.
The way you're responding is not conducive to others helping you here.
I'm not looking for help from anyone - certainly not you - on this issue. All the WiFi devices I use (half-a-dozen or so) work with kernel drivers, or in one case (a USB device) with a driver I compile.
Da Rock wrote:
Useful no doubt, but no answer to the question that was actually raised, which was how one could find the chipset in a WiFi device.
Try looking at the wifi(wireless) card. I mean take it in your hand and look at it. Do you notice anything?
I have two PCMCIA WiFi cards in my hand. One is named "Orinoco Gold" and the other "Vivanco WLAN PCC 54". I notice two things about them:
Neither has any mention of the chipset it contains
Neither has any obvious way of seeing what is in the card,
short of destroying it.
What did you think I would notice, as a matter of interest?
- You should see a version or product number (may be in small print, so
put on your glasses and look). 2. You should see a serial number.
Sigh. I do see the product number on the card (not the firmware version, since I have upgraded this). I do see the serial number.
I DO NOT SEE THE CHIPSET.
Well then, thats what you should look up.
Sigh. I don't want to know the chipset in any card I have, as they all work perfectly well with drivers in the kernel.
The question at issue was: How can you tell the chipset of a WiFi card. The reply I was given was that it is written on the card. I simply pointed out that this is not true. I have never seen a WiFi card with the chipset given on it.
On Tue, 2008-01-29 at 00:32 +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:
Da Rock wrote:
Useful no doubt, but no answer to the question that was actually raised, which was how one could find the chipset in a WiFi device.
Try looking at the wifi(wireless) card. I mean take it in your hand and look at it. Do you notice anything?
I have two PCMCIA WiFi cards in my hand. One is named "Orinoco Gold" and the other "Vivanco WLAN PCC 54". I notice two things about them:
Neither has any mention of the chipset it contains
Neither has any obvious way of seeing what is in the card,
short of destroying it.
What did you think I would notice, as a matter of interest?
- You should see a version or product number (may be in small print, so
put on your glasses and look). 2. You should see a serial number.
Sigh. I do see the product number on the card (not the firmware version, since I have upgraded this). I do see the serial number.
I DO NOT SEE THE CHIPSET.
Well then, thats what you should look up.
Sigh. I don't want to know the chipset in any card I have, as they all work perfectly well with drivers in the kernel.
The question at issue was: How can you tell the chipset of a WiFi card. The reply I was given was that it is written on the card. I simply pointed out that this is not true. I have never seen a WiFi card with the chipset given on it.
You would have to open the card's case to see it if the maker's website isn't helpful based on the model or serial number of the card.
You can often find an appropriate driver by doing either an "lspci -n" (if the wireless is built in or on a PCMCIA card) or "lsusb -n" (if it's a USB card). Look for the manufacturer's ID and product ID, then google for them.
Example: An "lspci" on my laptop reveals this:
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Unknown device 4229 (rev 61)
So PCI device 02:00.0 is my wireless NIC. An "lspci -n | grep 02:00.0" then reveals the details:
02:00.0 0280: 8086:4229 (rev 61)
If I google for 8086:4229 (the manufacturer ID:product ID), I find a bunch of stuff telling me I need the iwl4965 driver layered on top of the mac80211 and cfg80211 drivers.
Note that this will work for MANY different cards--not just wireless NICs. I figured out which drivers I needed for various webcams and the like by doing the exact same thing.
And to all the folk who contribute to the various wikis and websites that collect this info, a big, heartfelt THANK YOU!
---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer rstevens@internap.com - - CDN Systems, Internap, Inc. http://www.internap.com - - - - All generalizations are false. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
The question at issue was: How can you tell the chipset of a WiFi card. The reply I was given was that it is written on the card. I simply pointed out that this is not true. I have never seen a WiFi card with the chipset given on it.
-- Timothy Murphy e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
This may be of no help for cards not manufactured to be sold in the USA and it often isn't even for cards that are. But, if the device has a FCC ID # on the back such as my Belkin F6D3010 PCMCIA wifi card (which had an Atheros logo on the box - the reason I bought it) go to this web address: www.fcc.gov/searchtools.html in the lower part of the page is a link to "FCC ID number search" On the search page, enter the 1st 3 digits of the id # in the 1st box, in this case K7S, which is the id for Belkin. In the 2nd box enter the remainder of the digits, including dashes, etc, in this case -F6D3010. Go to bottom of page to select "search"
On the next page select "Detail" view and then select "Internal photos" The photographer tried to hide all the details in the picture but you can make out the Atheros logo on the chip. On another usb wifi adapter my son uses (M$) the logo RA is visible. Some cards have good info and others, like these by Belkin, do not.
for what it's worth,
Fred
Fred Erickson wrote:
The question at issue was: How can you tell the chipset of a WiFi card. The reply I was given was that it is written on the card. I simply pointed out that this is not true. I have never seen a WiFi card with the chipset given on it.
-- Timothy Murphy e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
This may be of no help for cards not manufactured to be sold in the USA and it often isn't even for cards that are. But, if the device has a FCC ID # on the back such as my Belkin F6D3010 PCMCIA wifi card (which had an Atheros logo on the box - the reason I bought it) go to this web address: www.fcc.gov/searchtools.html in the lower part of the page is a link to "FCC ID number search" On the search page, enter the 1st 3 digits of the id # in the 1st box, in this case K7S, which is the id for Belkin. In the 2nd box enter the remainder of the digits, including dashes, etc, in this case -F6D3010. Go to bottom of page to select "search"
On the next page select "Detail" view and then select "Internal photos" The photographer tried to hide all the details in the picture but you can make out the Atheros logo on the chip. On another usb wifi adapter my son uses (M$) the logo RA is visible. Some cards have good info and others, like these by Belkin, do not.
Thanks, that is very interesting. As the OP, I should say I have never actually come across the issue that started the discussion, namely a manufacturer changing the chip without altering the version number. But I'm sure it does happen, as several people have said.
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Da Rock -
Fred Erickson -
John Summerfield -
Rick Stevens -
Timothy Murphy