Expresscard slots in laptops

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locutus
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Location: Ontario, Canada

Expresscard slots in laptops

Post by locutus »

Hi. Anybody who has a laptop with an Expresscard slot (not PCMCIA), have you managed to get it working? I have an Acer Aspire whose wireless capabilities are weak -- in Linux anyway; seems to work ok in Vista. So I bought a Belkin Expresscard wireless N card. Mint didn't offer to load any drivers so I assume there aren't any. I did manage to install a Win2000 driver using ndiswrapper, and checking the Network it said it was plugged in and working except there was no connection. I did reboot already, and it is configured correctly. I have a button to turn off wireless for the laptop but I assume that's for the built in wifi rather than a separate card. In any case it would not work with wifi turned off or on. My knowledge in this area is weak. Is there something obvious I'm missing?

Thanks in advance.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Kestrel1

Re: Expresscard slots in laptops

Post by Kestrel1 »

Go to a terminal & type:

Code: Select all

ifconfig
& post the result.
locutus
Level 4
Level 4
Posts: 402
Joined: Mon Dec 04, 2006 4:54 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: Expresscard slots in laptops

Post by locutus »

doug@doug-laptop ~ $ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1b:38:75:e2:18
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:220 Base address:0x2000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:190 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:190 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:11376 (11.1 KB) TX bytes:11376 (11.1 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1f:3a:00:64:5e
inet addr:192.168.1.106 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:164 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:173 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:43579 (42.5 KB) TX bytes:25153 (24.5 KB)

wlan2 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1c:df:30:5c:ea
inet addr:192.168.1.115 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1304 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1242 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1002418 (978.9 KB) TX bytes:309038 (301.7 KB)
Interrupt:22 Memory:f2000000-f2010000

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-1F-3A-00-64-5E-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
I rebooted and ran the command. It seems that it is recognized (as wlan2), but how do I enable it and turn the internal wifi off?
locutus
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Posts: 402
Joined: Mon Dec 04, 2006 4:54 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: Expresscard slots in laptops

Post by locutus »

Never mind. I now have 2 status icons in the taskbar. I pressed the "off" key on my laptop for internal wifi (icon turned white) and the Belkin shows green. I started kwifimanager and it's showing a full 54 Mbit/s. I'll watch it to see if it holds. The internal wifi signal bounced around from 1 Mbit/s to about 38 Mbit/s, but was often at just 1 Mbit/s on the internal wifi.

Thanks for the command. It showed me it was working after all. Yesterday I did not get the second icon in the taskbar and had no connection. Works great right now though. Thanks again.
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