Trying to get P2 450 wireless with XP

M

Metspitzer

I have an old P2 450 with 256k ram. The machine does everything I need
it to do. It currently has a PCI network adapter and I want to change
the card to wireless.

I bought a Linksys PCI card with speed booster. I could not get the
card to work. It would report the card, but it would not recognize
the wireless router even when I put the in the same room. The min
requirements are 500 Mhz with 128k mem. I let Linksys tech support
take control of the computer and they were unable to get it to work
either. They mailed me another card of the same type and it did the
same thing.

I went to Staples to get another name brand to see if I could get a
card with less requirements. All they had was anothe Linksys, but the
card they had did not have speed booster. The store tech guy said it
should work even though it also has a 500Mhz 128k requirement. I
bought it.

When I got home I uninstalled all the old drivers and rebooted the
machine. I then loaded the Linksys drivers for the new card. The
next step is to install the card. So I did. It will not report the
card.

In the device manager it reports a driver named...Packet Scheduler
mini port #4. When I try to uninstall this I get an error message
saying that the uninstall failed. It says....the device may be
required to boot the computer.

I called Linksys, and since this is the third card I have tried they
really didn't seem to willing to help. I told the tech girl I wanted
to try to uninstall all the drivers. She had me check the properties
of the driver. The owner is Microsoft so she said all she could
suggest was to try the card in another PCI slot. I have pulled all my
PCI cards out of the machine and tried the new card in every slot and
it won't report.

Any suggestions on how I can get rid of the driver or what should I
try next to get the computer working with wireless?
 
M

Metspitzer

Where I am stuck is that when I check the device manager with no PCI
cards in the machine at all I still have a ghost device.
It has a network card icon with an X over the icon. It doesn't look
like the icon with a question mark.

If I boot the computer in safe mode it shows my Linksys 100 installed
3 times and it shows the ghost icon of the packet scheduler.

I wish I could do screenshots, but I would have to burn the image to a
CD to get it to a machine connected to the Internet.

I would like to uninstall the ghost device, but I get the error it
failed to uninstall because the device may be required to boot the
computer.
 
A

Anteaus

Older PCI implementations often won't support wireless PCI cards. This is a
well-known issue. You might be able to get a BIOS update, but this does carry
a risk of 'bricking' the computer if it goes badly.

Try a USB adaptor, they will usually work.
 
S

smlunatick

Thanks

After 3 different cards, this is what I need to hear.





- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

The older PCs (Pentium 4 or lower) may not follow the ACPI scheme.
They then only have IRQ 0 to 15 and some are "reserved." You need to
just locate and adjust the IRQ assignment setting to the PCI port.

Hint: If you do not use the COM ports or Parallel port, you are able
to "free" up upto 4 IRQs:

COM 1 -- IRQ 4
COM 2 -- IRQ 3

Parallel port

LPT1 - IRQ 7.

LPT2 -- IRQ 5 (note can also be used by some sound cards Sound Blaster
compatible.)
 
M

Metspitzer

I have an old P2 450 with 256k ram. The machine does everything I need
it to do. It currently has a PCI network adapter and I want to change
the card to wireless.
Click to expand...

Getting a USB external dongle worked where 3 different internal cards
did not.

Thanks everyone.
 

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