Mailing List os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com Archived Message #1683

From:	"Ed Durrant" <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>	Full Headers Undecoded message
Subject:	Re: [OS2Wireless]Re: Getting started with GenMac
Date:	Tue, 31 Oct 2006 18:24:33 +1100
To:	OS/2 Wireless Users Mailing List <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>

Lothar Frommhold wrote: Ed: If this is not too imposing, could you perhaps also send a copy of the installation of the Intel 2200BG card to me? I would much appreciate it! Lothar I hope the others on this list will forgive me, but I'll post the details here (now with the correction from Neil - thanks for spotting that about the 1802 fix), so that Lothar (and perhaps others) may get some use out of this. A couple of addendum to the original instructions at the bottom of this note (I'll have to merge these and reformat this to be more readable at some point). ADDENDUM 2. =========== If you are using a Centrino chipset based Thinkpad laptop, or one that has the Intel Speedstep technology (I think this is only the Centrino systems but I could be wrong), Turn off this feature in the BIOS. If you don't the WiFi card will work when connected to AC but not when on battery ! Process for a T42 is as follows - other models may be similar: Power on T42, Press F1 to enter BIOS enter hardware admin password to the first prompt and HD password to the second prompt (if you have these set). press enter when on "Config" move the cursor down and press enter when on "power" You can set all values on this screen as follows (you have to scroll down for about the last 30% as they're off the bottom of the screen): Power Mode for AC Maximum Performance Power Mode for Battery Maximum Performance Processor Speed Fixed Max Suspend timer Disabled LCD off timer Disabled HDD off timer Disabled Hibernate by timer Disabled Timer Wake with Battery Operation Disabled Low Battery Action Suspend Suspend when LCD is closed No Suspend Suspend/Hibernate while docked Disabled RediSafe Disabled Resume on time Disabled Resume Time 00:00:00 Resume Date 00/00/0000 Resume on Modem Ring Disabled Intel (R) SpeedStep technology Disabled Mode for AC (Grayed out) Automatic Mode for Battery (Grayed out) Battery Optimized Screen Blanking Disabled Power Switch Mode On/Off Suspend to hibernation Disabled CDROM Speed Normal CPU Power Management Disable PCI Bus Power Management Disable F10 to save and exit This instruction turns of ALL power saving components however of all of these settings we have found that the relevant ones are the Intel Speedstep and CPU Power Management settings. We are further investigating this problem as having power management turned off on a laptop while on battery is not ideal. It is possible that with a more "speedstep friendly" version of the OS/2 Kernel, the 2200BG card could work with the power saving settings turned on. ADDENDUM 1. =========== Please read this as an addendum to my previous documentation. In that documentation, I suggested that you let WLANMON configure the TCPIP port rather than using TCPCFG2 - this is also what the readme for WLANMON says is more reliable. My findings are in fact the opposite. Configure the TCPIP port for your WifI and your cabled connection in TCPCFG2. Note: you can only assign DHCP to one port using this program, so you will need to assign a static address to either your LAN cabled connection or your WiFi connection (we were doing this via WLANMON anyway, so we really only doing this in another place). It would be nice to have DHCP running on both ports - "watch this space" I believe it will be possible by simply editing SETUP.CMD - but lets leave that one for now ... Once you have enabled lan1 in TCPCFG2 and given it an IP address and subnet mask, go to the WLANMON ICON - RMB and select ADD/EDIT profile, make sure your profile is highlighted - I guess you only have one at this point in time, so it will probably be highlighted already, press Edit, On the Connection TAB - unclick the Create a network if one is found. On the TCP/IP TAB - click on don't configure. Leave the security tab as is. Close this properties book. Press close on the "select a profile" panel. RMB on the ICON and exit. Close down and restart your system. Click on Wireless LAN Monitor and hopefully she'll turn Green every time from now on ! ORIGINAL DOCUMENTATION ====================== Now that I have got this working, here is the documentation that I promised: NOTE: This process is not perfect ! I wanted to ensure the process was repeatable - it's not 100%, however as it has worked and proved that both the hardware and the GenMac driver appear to work as expected (the issues are around TCPIP configuration and how it interfaces to WlanMon as far as I can see), I wanted to pass this information on. Since others have said they haven't been able to even get their cards working at all, I felt this process may be of use to them. Also the more people testing, will isolate the issues affecting operation that much quicker. The first time this process was followed it worked perfectly, the second time, it failed until I removed TCPBEUI (which had worked previously), the third time no matter what I did in the TCPIP and WlanMon configurations, I could not get it to work, the forth time, it worked correctly again. ======================================================================== STARTING POINT: Without any card installed in the MINI-PCI slot - 1802 Bios fix run to allow the IBM hardware to accept this Toshiba branded Mini_PCI card. (The patch removes the hardware check). Intel 2200BG MINI-PCI Card Installed. CMOS (BIOS) Settings - no changes - default settings. 1. Download the required software; GENMAC Wrapper Version 1.00 and v 1.6 upgrade package. WLANMON v 2.12 (There are later versions - use at your own risk - this process used these versions). 2. Clean-up Stage (Skip this if this is your first install attempt). MPTS - Remove protocols from 2200BG card - Remove any SVista or VPC virtual network protocol drivers (on any card) - Remove NIC definition for 2200BG card. - Adjust any remaining card to be the first adapter. CONFIG.SYS - Rem out all Uniaud lines. - Rem out all virtualPC lines. - Delete the Run Helperw.exe line OS2.INI - Using either REGEDIT2 or inimaint (or similar INI editor), Delete the following four keys from OS2.INI/HINI_USER_PROFILE Wireless Lan monitor:Networks Wireless Lan monitor:Profiles Wireless Lan monitor:Properties Wireless Lan monitor:Stream Profiles (these should be the only "wireless" entries that are present). DESKTOP - Delete Wireless LAN Monitor folder and any shadows or copies you made of it or its contained objects. (if you installed Wlanmon as a Widget previously - delete the widget). -- REBOOT the system -- DISK - Delete the complete GENMAC directory tree - normally written to the system root drive. - Delete any directories you created to install (x)wlanmon into 3. Check Status. Make sure your other (Non WLAN) network connection is working correctly. Check configuration in MPTS Check condiguration in TCPCFG2 Check configuration in LANINST Note: You should have LAN interface zero and the loopback interface configured normally in TCPCFG2 - we will not configure the WLAN interface here, rather we let WLANMON do this for us. -- COLD RESTART -- Check no errors are indicated on boot up and that communication is working on your non-WLAN NIC. 4. Install GENMAC driver. Go to the temporary directory where you downloaded the code into and create a sub-directory for GENMAC. e.g. if you downnloaded to E:\TEMP create E:\TEMP\GENMAC Unzip the GENMAC v 1.00 Zip file into this new subdirectory. Unzip the GENMAC v 1.6 zip package into the SAME subdirectory. Go into the subdirectory and execute the INSTALL.CMD file. This will create a directory tree called \GENMAC off the system root, load the required NIF and MAC files into \IBMCOM\MACS and add a line to the start of CONFIG.SYS for the HELPERW.EXE program. Run MPTS and select and add the INTEL WLAN 2200BG as the next NIC in the configuration (i.e. if your onboard ethernet connection is the first NIC, make this the second NIC.) Now add ONLY the TCPIP protocol to the 2200BG NIC (if you need additional protocols, add them once the card is working - often TCPIP is all you need). Check the protocol number allocated to the TCPIP protocol does not conflict with any existing number - normally it would have a protocol number of 1. If there is a conflict adjust to avoid this by using the "change number" button. Still from within MPTS, edit the 2200BG card settings: Make Network Name (SSID) either blank or the name of your access point (this field is case sensitive). Change Debug Level from "NO" to "NONE". Change Wrapper Options from "NO" to "STACK32". Exit MPTS and save everything, letting CONFIG.SYS be updated. -- SHUT DOWN and COLD BOOT the system -- On reboot - check that the card is indicated as having it's driver loaded, this text is in red and must also indicate that it is version 1.6. - Should say "loaded for device ....". (Note: If you find that you have the wrong version of GENMAC, you cannot simply copy over HELPERW.EXE and GENM32W.OS2 - the copy will not give an error, but the file will not change as it is locked - you will need to run the "Unlock" program (in the GENMAC package, in the \BIN subdirectory) first and then replace these files. If the driver does not load at this point, this could suggest a faulty card. 5. Install WLANMON. Firstly it is important to note that we will install the EXE version and NOT the widget. Create a directory to hold WLANMON e.g. E:\WLANMON and unzip the (v2.12) package from the temporary directory where you downloaded it to this new directory. Execute the INSTEXE.CMD file from this directory, it will install the program in its current location and create a folder on the desktop. Start the wireless Lan Monitor and you will see a welcome screen and a flashing small ICON. Press OK. Now drag the ICON to a better place on the desktop and right mouse button (RMB)click it. I don't like this small ICON so I always select Window and click on Large Window Size. Then again Window and "always stay on top". If you are happy with the small icon, these two actions are optional. Now we will set the overall properties, so RMB - Properties. Radio tab - Set activate radio on startup Connection scan tab - Set scan for connections on startup - change interval and retries to something more sensible - default is 2/3600, I use 4/15. Device tab -this must show "Genmac wrapper INTEL 2200WLAN [8086:4220] and version WIND32$ 1.06, if not either the card is faulty or you have missed/incorrectly actioned an instruction above. TCP/IP tab - click Execute LAN config on disconnect - on. - leave Conflict at "prompt user". Script tab - leave both options ON, even though the scripts don't exist. Mouse Actions tab - Leave as set (next profile / Scan). Error handling tab - Leave all three options selected. Display tab 1 - Leave as set (system value / 0) Display tab 2 - Info only. Information tab - must indicate v 2.12. Exit properties and RMB on the ICON again - Select ADD/EDIT Profile then NEW .... Connection tab 1 - Enter a Profile name - e.g. HomeWiFi - Leave Connect as Basic ...... - click on "create a network" - click on "include in connection scan" - enter the SSID of your access point in the network name field. Connection tab 2 - is greyed out. Security tab 1 - Encryption - in my case this was WEP64 Enter the key number set to be used with your access point(AP) (1,2,3 or 4) - check your AP for what you set it to. Either generate using a known passphrase or enter all four keys manually. TCP/IP tab - Although most access points also work as DHCP servers during this initial set up stage I prefer to give the system a static IP address. To do this, click on "configure manually", enter the IP address and subnet mask, Click on "more TCP/IP options" and enter the default gateway IP address. Close this new profile and then press close on "select a profile" RMB on the ICON again, click on "select profile" and then the profile you just created (this should be the only one available. RMB on the ICON and click on "scan for connection". RMB one last time on the ICON and select EXIT to close WLANMON. -- SHUT DOWN, POWER OFF and RESTART the laptop -- 6. Testing If you are lucky, once the system has fully booted, if you click on WLANMON the icon will load and go green - you have connectivity ! In this state the reset TCPIP configuration option in the ICON RMB menu will be selectable - this is grey until the connection is working. Also you will be able to do a scan of hotspots, set the type to all and you will see your access point and possibly others in your area listed. If you do not get into a connected mode, you can try the following changes: Remove TCPBEUI and Netbios from your onboard NIC and restart. Change WLANMON not to allocate a static IP address but rather to use DHCP. Change Wrapper to be the first NIC and the onboard to be the second. Any and all TCP/IP configuration changes whether through TCPCFG2 or the profile in WLANMON REQUIRE you to do a reboot of the system before they will "settle in". Once you have the system working, a small change like adding in DNS addresses can stop the link working AND backing out the change DOES NOT return the link to operation ! The only way I have found around this is to delete the four OS2.INI entries and then re- configure WLANMON again. This lets me conclude that the area that is less than perfect is WLANMONs configuration of TCPIP and this stops the WiFi connection from working at all. It may be better to manually configure this TCPIP connection in TCPCFG2 and disable the "create a network" in connection tab 1 of the profile properties, however the notes with this software recommend not to do this. ======================================================================== Again, I would like to stress that this process is not 100% ! I am not the developer of the driver or application and as such, I cannot do more than document my findings. The key finding is that this hardware DOES work under eCS 2.0B2. This hopefully is a good starting point to clarify the last few variables to get the solution stable. Regards, Ed.

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