Information provided is to the best of our knowledge. Use at your own risk.
Please see our Terms and Conditions page.

Information on the following topics has been loosely organized as follows.

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Technical Support
• Firmware, Drivers, etc.
• Anything else we think might be interesting

FAQ: Freqently Asked Questions

• There was no CD included with my 5354, 3054 Card. Where can I get the driver?
• I have the 802.11b 2511 MP PLUS mini PCI card with two external antenna leads. Where is the manual? Where is the driver? Do I have to hook up both antenna leads? Which is the main lead?
• The spec sheet for the 2511 MP PLUS, 3054 MP ARIES and/or 5354 MP ARIES say the connectors are MMCX. Which is it? MMCX or U.FL?
• How well do these 802.11b cards work? Do you sell a lot of them?
• Where are the drivers for the Intersil 802.11b cards?
• I'd like to run Linux! Where are the drivers for the Atheros 802.11g and 802.11a cards (the 5354 and 3054 cards)?
• I'd like to run an 802.11b network under Linux with hostAP and I have a deskside computer. What do I need?
• What about BSD? FreeBSD? NetBSD? OpenBSD?
• I want to replace the mini PCI card in my laptop with one of your cards. Will it work?
• I want to upgrade to the 2511 MP PLUS, or one of the MP ARIES. Will it work in my laptop?
• I have an IBM T30 (or an A30, A31, G40, R32, R40, R50, R51, T30, T40, T41, X30, X31, X40) and would like to upgrade my mini PCI card. Will it work?
• I have a Dell.
• Where can I find a driver for my XXXXX card?
• What is the PCI-ID for the 5354 MP ARIES?

• There was no CD included with my 5354, 3054 Card. Where can I get the driver?

None of the mini PCI cards ship with a CD. The 3054 CB ARIES card and other mini PCI (Atheros) drivers are located here. As of September 2004 use the ClientSetupV3022.zip driver.

• I have the 802.11b 2511 MP PLUS mini PCI card with two external antenna leads. Where is the manual? Where is the driver? Do I have to hook up both antenna leads? Which is the main lead?

  If you have ordered a 2511MP PLUS mini PCI card, the drivers and User's Guide are available by following the links from this page to get to User Guide (zip) or User Manual (pdf). The 2511 drivers for the CD PLUS EXT2 work on the MP card as well. (same chipset). On the 2511 MP PLUS, the main is the connector closer to the edge connector (away from the top of card), the other antenna lead is the Aux lead. You only need to attach two antennas if you wish to support receive diversity.

• The spec sheet for the 2511 MP PLUS, 3054 MP ARIES and/or 5354 MP ARIES say the connectors are MMCX. Which is it? MMCX or U.FL?

The spec sheets are wrong. The connector types for all three miniPCI cards are U.FL.

• How well do these 802.11b cards work? Do you sell a lot of them?

They work very, very well. We sell a lot of them. Here is an enthusiastic user review.

• Where are the drivers for the Intersil 802.11b cards?
  • The 2511 series of cards uses the Intersil Prism 2.5 chipset. That is the 2511 CD PLUS, 2511 CD PLUS EXT2, 2511 MP PLUS, etc.
  • The drivers for the Prism Intersil 2.5 chipset are already distributed with Linux 7.2. The Linux 7.0 drivers can be found here.
  • Looking for the Host AP driver? See: http://hostap.epitest.fi/
  • NetBSD/OpenBSD support is available through the "wi" driver for the intersil chipset.

 

• I'd like to run Linux! Where are the drivers for the Atheros 802.11g and 802.11a cards (the 5354 and 3054 cards)?

  Check out the progress on the Atheros madwifi driver on Sourceforge here [http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi/]

• I'd like to run an 802.11b network under Linux with hostAP and I have a deskside computer. What do I need?

You'll need an 802.11b 2511 CD PLUS or 2511 CD PLUS EXT2, a PCI Adapter and the pcmcia package from Sourceforge. You will probably have to compile in the support for the PCI Adapter as well as for the wireless adapter.

• What about BSD? FreeBSD? NetBSD? OpenBSD?
  • Intersil cards (2511):

If your OS supports the "wi" driver, then our 802.11b Senao / EnGenius 2511 CD PLUS, 2511 CD PLUS EXT2, and 2511 MP PLUS cards will work. The card ID for the 2511 series is "intersil" Try:

wi driver (ifconfig wi0 ssid foo channel 6 mediaopt hostap up).

The 3054 / 5004 / 5354 cards all have Atheros chipsets. Check your favorite driver (madwifi, ath, wi) to see if this chipset is supported under the BSD flavor of your choice.

Also note there is no 802.11g/a (Atheros) m0n0wall support on BSD5, unless you want to recompile your own kernel. Only 802.11b (Intersil) is supported by m0n0wall.

One satisfied customer writes: A lot of security people are using FreeBSD because it has interface polling, greatly enhances the amount of traffic you can process on an IDS system over Linux or Windows.

• Atheros cards (3054, 5004, 5354):

FreeBSD supports the "ath" driver for Atheros based cards. The kernel will need to be recomplied with that driver.You also need to add the ath_hal device. Add these lines to your kernel config file:

device ath # The ath driver
device ath_hal # needed by ath

***OpenBSD does NOT support the madwifi driver for the Atheros cards by choice.***

• I want to replace the mini PCI card in my laptop with one of your cards. Will it work?

  It is difficult to predict what will happen with a particular card in a particular laptop because there is no control over several things:

  1. Length/location of the antenna leads attached inside the laptop
  2. size of the opening inside the case (there are two sizes of miniPCI cards)
  3. spurious emissions inside the laptop that can affect the wireless card performance (or even cause it to not function
  4. skill level of the person installing the card/pigtails/drivers.
  5. some laptop vendors change the insides of the laptop without changing the model number.

  Some of these items are addressed below. The real answer to will it work? is it depends.

  It depends on:

  Are you handy at installing hardware? Here is a visual tutorial for installing a miniPCI card.

  Does your laptop support Type IIIa or Type IIIb mini PCI cards? Your spec sheet for your laptop should mention the type of miniPCI slot you have. . The 2511 MP PLUS, 3054 MP Aries and 5354 MP ARIES2 4G miniPCI cards are Type IIIA. The 5004 MP ARIES 4G is Type IIIB. The difference between Type IIIA and IIIB cards is: Type IIIA is slightly larger than Type IIIB, so any Type IIIB card should bit into a Type IIIA slot. Here are the dimensions:

  
  Type IIIA is 50.8 x 59.6 x 4.9mm
  Type IIIB is 44.45 x 59.6 x 4.9 mm

  
  
  Does your laptop already have antennas/antennas leads embedded in the system? (most new laptops do.)

  If you do not have at least one cable with a U.FL connector hanging out in your mini PCI slot, or if you cannot find a U.FL connector to the internal antenna on the motherboard near the miniPCI slot, then you CANNOT use a wireless mini PCI card. There are no aftermarket antennas that we are aware of. We do have a 2 inch U.FL to U.FL jumper cable if you can identify the motherboard connector for your antenna lead. New Rumor has it the Dell Spares department carries a jumper cable. Ask for part # 37THY.
  
  Here is a list of laptops that should be compatible with our mini PCI cards. THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOUR ANTENNA LEADS WILL ALWAYS BE ABLE TO REACH THE CONNECTORS WITHOUT SOME LAPTOP SURGERY. This list is NOT comprehensive.

  Compaq Evo N410c, N600c, N610c, N800c, N800v, N1000c, N1000v, and N1015v
  Dell Inspiron 4100, 4150, 5100, 8200, 8500, 8600, and Latitudes X200, C400, C510, C610, C640, C840
  Gateway 600YR 200stm solo 9550 5350 400SD4 solo 1450
  Fujitsu Lifebook C (2010, 2111), E (E7010, E7110), S (S6110), and B (2610) series, P2000, and P1000
  Hewlett Packard Omnibooks VT6200, XT6200, X1015US, and 510
  IBM Thinkpad (models that support "open" Type-III mini-pci slots) Note: this does not include the A30, A31, G40, R32, R40, R50, R51, T30, T40, T41, X30, X31, X40. (see further questions below).
  Sony Vaio GRS100 Series, NV200 Series, SRX99 Series, VX89 Series, and R505
  Superslim Pro
  Toshiba Satellite 1800, 1905, 1955, 5105, 5205 Series, Satellite Pro 4600 Satellite Pro 6100 Series, Protege 2000, 4010, and Tecra 9000, 9100

• I want to upgrade to the 2511 MP PLUS, or one of the MP ARIES. Will it work in my laptop?

Probably yes. See the previous question. Then also consider the number of connectors on the following mini PCI cards:

2511 MP PLUS (802.11b): Two U.FL connectors. Connect to at least one. (closest to the card edge.)
3054 MP ARIES (802.11g): Two U.FL connectors. Connect to G1.
5004 MP ATHEROS 4G (802.11a/b/g): Two U.FL connectors. Connect to G1.
5354 MP ARIES2 4G (802.11a/b/g): Two U.FL connectors. Connect to A1.

• I have an IBM T30 (or an A30, A31, G40, R32, R40, R50, R51, T30, T40, T41, X30, X31, X40) and would like to upgrade my mini PCI card. Will it work?

No. Read this first then call IBM to complain. The IBM BIOS is designed to keep them from working (last update Sept 10, 2004). The BIOS will stop before it reaches the stage of booting an OS if you insert one. It's not a bug, since the diagnostic that shows up quite clearly complains about it being a non-standard miniPCI card. At least, this is the case with our T30, and we find it unlikely that IBM decided that they would no longer include this 'feature'. They claim it has to do with FCC certification.

While we're not endorsing this in any way, here is a very fine link to a group who are working to correct the situation: http://www.paul.sladen.org/thinkpad-r31/wifi-card-pci-ids.html also see http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mjg59/thinkpad/wireless.html

Here is another suggested hack:

Remove miniPCI card from laptop (if it's currently installed)
Boot into WinXP
Shutdown into 'standby' mode
Install Adapter
Wakeup from Standby mode
XP should see and install the adapter drivers and it should then your miniPCI card will work
Whenever you reboot you will have to go through this procedure again..

• The 5354 CB ARIES and 5354 MP ARIES data sheet says it is possible to adjust the transmission power. How do we do that?

In the API, go to the Profile Modification page under Advance. You will see a Transmit Level Adjustment.

• I have a Dell.

  We have a Dell page!

• Where can I find a driver for my XXXXX card?

We have several drivers available here

If you're looking for something else, you will need to know which radio chipset you have. Then try the following:
acx100 drivers (802.11b+ 22mbit): http://acx100.sf.net/
isl3890 drivers (802.11b/g/a, various cards): http://www.prism54.org/
Atheros drivers (802.11b/g/a, various cards): http://www.sf.net/projects/madwifi