Re: [LUG] Suggested venu for meetings and rant/questions about WLAN and WWLAN cards.

Hi, I'm volentering at the Liskerrett Centre at the moment and it struck me that it might be a good venue for a DCGLUG Meet. There are pleanty of rooms, a cafe, IT room, wireless and I'm sure it wouldn't cost too much as, like I said I help out there...

http://www.liskerrett.co.uk/

One other thing is, I am trying to get a DELL vostro 1520 laptop up and running properly with some dificulties. The system (Vista) wouldn't recognise the WLAN mini PCI card properly. It seems to be a common problem from my googeling; which makes me think why do big companies release hardware to customers that simply doesnt work or hasn't got the appropriate
software. But apart from that I also am confused between the WLAN and the WWLAN ? I have opened the machine up because I couldn't see the WLAN card from the system and it's a 'Broadcom IC: 4324A' FCC ID - QDS - BRCM
1030. There is an empty slot for a WWLAN card and ONE spare grey wire with connector on the end. Also puzzling as if I wanted to install both a WLAN card and a WWLAN card there wouldn't be enough wires to do it...anyway from what I can find on the internet people either have returned their machines with this card, used a USB dongle, installed a diferent card or given up. I have found one driver but am not at all sure it will work.

Should I get a WWLAN card and try to use it instead of this WLAN card ? Should I try another card?

Cheers, Jon Davey.

You might be getting confused. WLAN stands for wireless LAN, WWAN (not WWLAN) stands for wireless WAN, which uses a mobile network to get internet access (like a mobile broadband dongle but built in to the machine).

Some laptops don't have all the antenna cables for WLAN and WWAN at the same time - some manufacturers sell their laptops as "WWAN ready", which means they've installed the antennas and you buy the card and install it. Others won't put the WWAN (3G) antennas in unless you bought the WWAN option when you bought the laptop. So unless you want mobile internet access there's no point buying and installing the parts (as you would probably need to take the screen apart to put the WWAN antenna in).

The spare cable you have might be for other types of WLAN cards that require it - I assume the one you have right now has two cables connected to it?

I can't really answer the rest of you email but have you tried the obvious things like checking in the BIOS to see that wireless is enabled, and that any wireless switch on the machine is turned on?

Shaun