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Wireless LAN on Win98SE


zago27

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Hi!

I've just built a Win98 macchine, based on a MS6163 motherboard, a Coppermine Celeron 1000MHz on slotket, 128MB of RAM, nVidia GeForce4 MX440 GPU, SoundBlaster AWE64 sound card. I mainly use this machine with Impulse Tracker and Audacity and I usually download IT, MOD, S3M, WAV and MP3 files from a FTP server on the Web. This PC can't be connected via Ethernet to the router because is located in a different room, so I'd like to install a WLAN card. I round many cards:

- PCI Atheros AR5005GS: can't find Win9x drivers

- PCI Intellinet Wireless G Network Adapter (Ralink RT2560 chip): set up driver and utility, but in Device Manager shows a Code 10 error and the utility can't find the card. Tried many versions, none worked.

- USB ZyXEL G-202: on attached disk, there wasn't 9x driver, but the box and the user guide say that it is fully compatible with 98SE and ME. ZyXEL website provides driver, but no Wireless utility. Code 10 in Device Manager.

- PCI USRobotics Wireless G Turbo Adapter: found driver and utility, Code 10.

No adapter worked. I did a last try: RTL8193 Fast Ethernet PCI card. Code 10, Realtek diag tool doesn't detect the card. Then, Kingston KNE20BT 10BaseT ISA card, Code 10. Same thing with RTL8026AS ISA Adapter.

The same 98 setup disk has been used on my old Latuitude XPi P133ST. Network stuff is OK and I used a PCMCIA Fast Ethernet card, until the CPU stopped working.

What can I do? 

Thanks in adavance, Enrico

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5 hours ago, zago27 said:


 

- PCI Atheros AR5005GS: can't find Win9x drivers

Weren't they all in the same package?


https://web.archive.org/web/20040805192136/http://www.atheros.com/pt/AR5005GS.htm

What is PCI/DEV of your card?

However, it is strange that *all cards*, even those for which you found the Windows 98 drivers result in a Code 10, it sounds like there is a "common issue" somehow related to the PCI bus or to some other subsystem. :dubbio:

jaclaz

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3 hours ago, jaclaz said:

However, it is strange that *all cards*, even those for which you found the Windows 98 drivers result in a Code 10, it sounds like there is a "common issue" somehow related to the PCI bus or to some other subsystem. :dubbio:

Now, I tried a Win2k dual-boot and the RTL8193 runs fine. :thumbup PCI bus is OK. ISA bus is also OK: sound card plays fine (no problems on MIDI, WaveTable, Line In, CD In, Outputs).

I'll try the USB ZyXEL: on the attached disk there are only NT drivers and utilities, from 2K to 7. On the side of the box, "Compatible with Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7". :huh: I'll search the web for the right files for 9x.

At this point, I think I have a corrupted version of NDIS on my Win98 setup disk. It sounds weird, because my old Latitude is was OK, my ThinkPad is OK and the VM on my main desktop is OK and I used the same disk.

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I've downloaded all the version on this server: the only usable is from 2006, the oldest. The original user guide from 2006 says that is capable of WEP, WPA and WPA2 on 98SE, ME, 2000 and XP.

Tomorrow, I'll install it on my machine and see if I get another Code 10 or if it works.

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you can use wsc gaurd 4.0 utility with some wifi cards to connect to routers today that use up to wpa2, you can do this by selecting the wpa option with aes encrpytion, typing password, and connect with a supported wifi card. problem is, you have to experiment and find which cards work or don't work. the cards below were NOT supported by wsc gaurd 4.0 -

 . cisco mpi350 mini pci card -PCI\VEN_14B9&DEV_A504&SUBSYS_500014B9,  PCI\VEN_14B9&DEV_A505&SUBSYS_640014B9
. rt2500 or ms6833a mini pci card - VEN_1814&DEV_0201

the Rosewill RNX-G300LX pci wireless card mentions windows 98SE as supported but i don't know 100 percent if it would work with the modern settings used in routers today as i never tested it myself. there is one pci wireless card in specific which was mentioned from somewhere with wpa2 support on 98SE, the name of the file was i think "DWL-g520_drv_revB_Version-4.40-wpa2" and the version of the driver i think was "4.1.2.723". this one probably has direct wpa2 support but i never tested this card either.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm currently using a D-Link AirPlus XtremeG DWL-G520 PCI card that supports WPA2 on Windows 98 SE. So far, I haven't had any problems with this card at all, though it was difficult to find the older Windows 98 compatible driver for it. I also have a HiRO H50069 PCI card (with Realtek RTL8185 chipset) which also supports WPA2 on Windows 98 SE, but I don't recommend this one because the Realtek utility is extremely buggy and wastes CPU usage. It might work better in Windows 2000, though. I'm not even sure how old these cards are. I just got them from my uncle's old desktops that he no longer uses any more. Both of the cards are able to connect with WPA2 to my AT&T U-verse router that was installed this year and have Wireless G support. I posted about these HERE.
The issue about the system locking up when using OpenGL is completely unrelated to the Wi-Fi card, and was fixed by updating the BIOS.

Edited by CamTron
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Maybe it is easier to get any common Ethernet card working in a Win98 computer and connect it with a cable to a Wlan router, which is configured in station/client mode to access the wireless network. This eliminates need for wi-fi-specific utilities that can be unstable or slow the system down.
 

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