Archive for "Wireless"

WUSB600N + WPA and Windows 7 RC1

Windows 7, Wireless Jun 23, 2009 1 Comment

I recently updated my personal Media Center PC to the latest build of Windows 7 Ultimate.  Upon upgrading, my Linksys WUSB600N Ver1 USB dongle stopped working.  Well, let me specify…

Explanation:

Windows 7 did recognize the WUSB600N, however everytime I entered my WPA TKIP encryption key it would comeback as incorrect.  Upon further investigation, I realized that Windows 7 was thinking that the WPA encrypted network was actually using WEP, which of course was incorrect.

Upon even further investigation, I realized Window 7 was installing the driver for the Version 2 of the WUSB600N.  I had the Version 1.

How to fix

  1. Download the correct driver from http://nmiller.net/downloads
  2. Navigate to \Windows\System32\drivers
  3. Find netr28u.sys
  4. Rename the file to netr28u.old
  5. Unplug the USB dongle
  6. Reboot
  7. Copy the downloaded netr28u.sys to the \Windows\System32\drivers directory
  8. Reboot
  9. Plug in the USB Dongle
  10. The correct driver should now be autoinstalling ENSURE IT DOES NOT SAY INSTALLING “WUSB600N…VERSION 2”  It should simple say installing WUSB600N (no version number).
  11. You should now be able to connect to WPA networks.

Intel 3945ABG, generic kernel 2.6.27 and Update Manager failure

Linux, Ubuntu, Wireless Oct 21, 2008 1 Comment

This post refers to the following items:
Lauchpad Bug 285280
Ubuntu Forums
Post

I applied a kernel update on October 15, 2008 which somehow didn’t have the updated nic-firmware package installed. Thus, my Intel 3945ABG wifi card stopped working…in the middle of work.
So after a couple minutes of research, I found this nifty little thread in the Ubuntu Forums. Following the instructions on the page, I indeed got my card to work.

Problem:

Upon the release of the next update they included the proper firmware in the package linux-firmware. This fails package updater and Update Manager. When I attempted to remove the package via Terminal I would get the following error:

$ sudo apt-get remove nic-firmware
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install’ to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
linux-image-generic: Depends: linux-firmware but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try ‘apt-get -f install’ with no packages (or specify a solution).

Fix:
Open the terminal and run the following:

# apt-get remove linux-image-generic

# apt-get remove linux-firmware

# apt-get remove nic-firmware

Then run updater and should update.

What was learned:
Packages have dependencies, and installing a dependency may not be the answer. You may need to work backwards. I had to remove all the packages that DEPENDED on nic-firmware before I could fix the problem. Seemed a bit backwards in my mind, but it worked.