A1200 Wifi

[Marchie]

Hi All,

I have just tried to setup my Wifi card (using this tutorial) but I'm having no joy:

A1200 8mb fast/2mb chip, 3.0 ROMs, Avaya Wireless PCMCIA card.

Basically I go through all the installation, plug the card in, power-up, and when the machine boots, I get a lit LED on my wireless card, an empty WB desktop with a pointer, eventually a 'recoverable' software error, followed by a (not-recoverable) software error.

Is this just the PCMCIA conflicting the the 8meg RAM card? (I was told this wouldn't be a problem with 3.0 ROMs)?

The machine boots as normal from the WB 3.1 floppy with the Wifi card inserted, and as normal from HDD with no wifi card, so I'm suspecting there's something in the startup sequence for MagicWB that's messing things up, but I don't know MagicWB, or startup-sequences well enough to pick it.

Basically I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions before I try the installation again with a vanilla Workbench 3.1 (or 3.0?)?

Thanks for any advice, Amiga people rule the world!

[sean_sk]

I had this issue as well, except in my case, I was only getting the recoverable error followed by software error every 2 or 3 reboots. I was running Classic Workbench 3.1 Lite with an ACA1221 on Kickstart 3.0 ROM's. I tried rearranging Startup-Sequence and the order when NetInterface and Roadshow were started, etc, etc, but it didn't help much. I also thought I might to have to do the hardware fix to the Gayle chip since I thought that perhaps the PCMCIA bug was to blame and that CardPatch and CardReset weren't working for me, but I didn't end up doing that.

What actually fixed the issue was putting in Kickstart 3.1 ROM's and all was good after that. Not necessarily saying this will fix your issue but if you're able to grab KS 3.1 ROM's it might be worth testing.

EDIT: I just saw your post that you downgraded to 3.0 ROM's. I'd be inclined to put the 3.1 ROM's back in.

[Sir_Lucas]

Originally Posted by Marchie

Hi All,

I have just tried to setup my Wifi card (using this tutorial) but I'm having no joy:

A1200 8mb fast/2mb chip, 3.0 ROMs, Avaya Wireless PCMCIA card.

Basically I go through all the installation, plug the card in, power-up, and when the machine boots, I get a lit LED on my wireless card, an empty WB desktop with a pointer, eventually a 'recoverable' software error, followed by a (not-recoverable) software error.

Is this just the PCMCIA conflicting the the 8meg RAM card? (I was told this wouldn't be a problem with 3.0 ROMs)?

The machine boots as normal from the WB 3.1 floppy with the Wifi card inserted, and as normal from HDD with no wifi card, so I'm suspecting there's something in the startup sequence for MagicWB that's messing things up, but I don't know MagicWB, or startup-sequences well enough to pick it.

Basically I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions before I try the installation again with a vanilla Workbench 3.1 (or 3.0?)?

Thanks for any advice, Amiga people rule the world!

This tutorial is for cards which support WPA2/AES and have been flashed to work with WPA2/AES.
For example this one:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/163164803326

Your card supports only WPA/TKIP. You have to setup your router into WPA/TKIP mode only - B/G or B/G/N mode.
You cannot use mixed mode e.g. WPA/WPA2//TKIP/AES. As the card will not be able to associate with your router.

It might be the case of PCMCIA conflicting as well with 8MB FAST Ram. However, I'd check the settings of your router first.

I'd try commenting out:
C:wirelessmanager prism2.device

And then after rebooting, I'd try associating with the router manually by openning CLI and typing in:

C:wirelessmanager prism2.device
or
C:wirelessmanager prism2.device VERBOSE.

[Marchie]

Thanks guys, I'm going to try all those suggestions and get back to you with my progress (or lack thereof!).

[Marchie]

Yeah, no real luck so far.

Putting 3.1 ROMs back in stopped the errors, but simply because it disabled the PCMCIA port (at least I got no LEDs lit in the card, and couldn't start prism2.device).

Changing the wireless router to TKIP made the 1200 error a little more quickly, but essentially no difference.

Strangely, commenting those lines out of the user-startup doesn't stop the wifi card from activating, as long as it's plugged-in it lights up and the machine doesn't start. Could I already have another conflicting driver on the system?

[sean_sk]

Originally Posted by Marchie

as long as it's plugged-in it lights up and the machine doesn't start

When you say it doesn't start, are you referring to the computer sitting at an empty workbench screen as you first mentioned in your first post? If so, did you wait a few minutes (maybe even 5 minutes) to see if it eventually booted into Workbench proper?

[Sir_Lucas]

Try adding CardPatch and CardReset to your system:

You can find them here:
http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/CardPatch
http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/CardReset

Extract them and put them in SYS:C
Add these lines at the begining of your Startup-Sequence

C:CardPatch
Run >NIL: C:CardReset TICKS 50

[Marchie]

Originally Posted by sean_skroht

When you say it doesn't start, are you referring to the computer sitting at an empty workbench screen as you first mentioned in your first post? If so, did you wait a few minutes (maybe even 5 minutes) to see if it eventually booted into Workbench proper?

Yes, 'doesn't start' means stuck on empty WB screen. It goes to error, resets and repeats. I haven't let this cycle through more than twice however, if there's nay value in doing so I'm happy to give it a go.

[Marchie]

Yes, thank you, I did that as described in the tutorial. Although in the tutorial he comments out some lines in the startup sequence to stop the prism2.device starting, which I followed, but it still starts up, can't figure out why...

Love the podcast by the way (if you are indeed the Ami Ireland guy!)

Originally Posted by Sir_Lucas

Try adding CardPatch and CardReset to your system:

You can find them here:
http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/CardPatch
http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/CardReset

Extract them and put them in SYS:C
Add these lines at the begining of your Startup-Sequence

C:CardPatch
Run >NIL: C:CardReset TICKS 50

[Sir_Lucas]

Originally Posted by Marchie

Yes, thank you, I did that as described in the tutorial. Although in the tutorial he comments out some lines in the startup sequence to stop the prism2.device starting, which I followed, but it still starts up, can't figure out why...

Love the podcast by the way (if you are indeed the Ami Ireland guy!)

Hi. Thanks for your kind words regarding the podcast I'm one of the guys hosting it - Luke.
The tutorial has been prepared by Jarlath.
Yes, it's important to comment out, put a semi-colon in your
USER-STARTUP sequence this line:

Run >NIL: C:Wirelessmanager.prism2.device

Save it. Reboot your Amiga. Open your CLI and type in:
C:WirelessManager prism2.device

or

C:WirelessManager prism2.device VERBOSE

[Dynamic_Computi]

Originally Posted by Marchie

Yeah, no real luck so far.

Putting 3.1 ROMs back in stopped the errors, but simply because it disabled the PCMCIA port (at least I got no LEDs lit in the card, and couldn't start prism2.device).

Changing the wireless router to TKIP made the 1200 error a little more quickly, but essentially no difference.

Strangely, commenting those lines out of the user-startup doesn't stop the wifi card from activating, as long as it's plugged-in it lights up and the machine doesn't start. Could I already have another conflicting driver on the system?

This worries me. I wonder if your 3.1 ROMS are not designed for the A1200. They use special ones with code to access the PCMCIA port, I think. Maybe they are ROMS for the A4000?
If this is the case, I wonder if you could find a copy of the device driver for A1200 PCMCIA and load it via the LOADMODULE program during startup. Not even sure if that would work.
I use a wireless card on my 3.1 ROM installed A1200 and it works ok. I do have to have WEP on the router as was mentioned above, but I suspect that is not the cause. You just would not connect if you were using the wrong security type,butthe machine should still boot.

[Marchie]

Originally Posted by Dynamic_Computi

This worries me. I wonder if your 3.1 ROMS are not designed for the A1200. They use special ones with code to access the PCMCIA port, I think. Maybe they are ROMS for the A4000?
If this is the case, I wonder if you could find a copy of the device driver for A1200 PCMCIA and load it via the LOADMODULE program during startup. Not even sure if that would work.
I use a wireless card on my 3.1 ROM installed A1200 and it works ok. I do have to have WEP on the router as was mentioned above, but I suspect that is not the cause. You just would not connect if you were using the wrong security type,butthe machine should still boot.

I suspect the ROMs are ok - I'm using a Magnum RAM8 expansion with the full 8meg on-board, and I'm told 3.1 automatically disables the PCMCIA port when there's 8 meg in the system so the memory addresses don't conflict. 3.0 however doesn't disable the port it just lets the system crash if you try to use PCMCIA memory expansion, but I'm told other PCMCIA devices, like Wifi cards should still work since they don't address memory space.

So I kind of expected the card to be non-responsive with 3.1 ROMs and 8meg onboard, but please do correct me if I'm wrong.

[idrougge]

Yep, you need to remove 4 megs or patch your system.

[Marchie]

Originally Posted by Sir_Lucas

Hi. Thanks for your kind words regarding the podcast I'm one of the guys hosting it - Luke.
The tutorial has been prepared by Jarlath.
Yes, it's important to comment out, put a semi-colon in your
USER-STARTUP sequence this line:

Run >NIL: C:Wirelessmanager.prism2.device

Save it. Reboot your Amiga. Open your CLI and type in:
C:WirelessManager prism2.device

or

C:WirelessManager prism2.device VERBOSE

Yeah I'm stumped. Adding the semicolon makes no difference. Booting with card connected always = no boot regardless of changes to user-startup. Booting without is fine, but no wifi (obviously).

If I boot, then connect the wifi card, open a shell and type "C:WirelessManager prism2.device" I just get "unknown command".

Maybe if I continue hit my head against this wall hard enough the wall will get bored and give up...

[Sir_Lucas]

Originally Posted by Marchie

Yeah I'm stumped. Adding the semicolon makes no difference. Booting with card connected always = no boot regardless of changes to user-startup. Booting without is fine, but no wifi (obviously).

If I boot, then connect the wifi card, open a shell and type "C:WirelessManager prism2.device" I just get "unknown command".

Maybe if I continue hit my head against this wall hard enough the wall will get bored and give up...

Right. Let's start from the top, shall we?

1. Set up your router into WPA/TKIP mode. No mixed mode, no WPA/WPA2 TKIP/AES. Just WPA/TKIP

2. Remove your memory card from your A1200

3. Download these drivers:
http://aminet.net/package/driver/net/prism2v2

4. Insert your Orinoco WLAN card. Boot your Amiga and install the prism2 drivers. Put your SSID and your Password.

5. Reboot your Amiga. Open User-startup sequence and put a semi-colon in front of
Run NIL: <> C:wirelessmanager prism2.device

Save. Reboot your Amiga once again.

6. After booting into WB open your CLI and type in:

C:wirelessmanager prism2.device
or
C:wirelessmanager prism2.device VERBOSE

Let's see the outcome.

[indigolemon]

This might help - http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=226

[Marchie]

Thanks for your help and patience folks, jumpered the mem card for 4mb and it's working somewhat:

Machine boots, when I type "wirelessmanager prism2.device" it connects as it does in the tutorial, but when I then try "addnetinterface prism2" I get "failed to open "bsdsocket.library"v4"...

Sir Lucas - your advice on changing the router to TKP was right on the money by the way - thank you!

[Sir_Lucas]

Addnetinterface is a part of Roadshow TCP/IP stack. Do you have it installed?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Dynamic_Computi

This worries me. I wonder if your 3.1 ROMS are not designed for the A1200. They use special ones with code to access the PCMCIA port, I think.

No, this is standard behaviour for 3.1 ROMs. They disable the PCMCIA port when 8MB of fast RAM is detected, since that would conflict with a memory card inserted. 3.0 does not do that, and as a result will crash if you use an SRAM memory card and have 8MB of fast RAM fitted on a 24-bit accelerator. So it's a safer approach and considered a bugfix for 3.1, though the developers never really considered the port's use for network cards - PCMCIA was originally intended just for memory cards.

[Marchie]

Ok, so...

I got my WiFi card working, then decided to upgrade to one that could handle WPA2-AES (previous one only did TKIP) and the new card has me flummoxed.

A friend helped me get the old card running using [ Show youtube player ] and AmiTCP.

I think I'm putting the wrong settings in the startnet file, as AMiTCP keeps throwing up errors about default gateway, subnet mask, gibber gibber (setup makes you define a domain name??). I understand a few basics, but networking is still largely alchemy to me. I understand what an IP adress is, but sometimes I can't figure out if it's asking for the details of the router, or asking for unique new details for the Amiga Wifi device.

If anyone can advise how I figure out the correct settings for WPA-AES for AmiTCP I will be eternally grateful (well maybe not eternally grateful, but, y'know, for several days at least).