3com PCMCIA Wireless network problems

[potski]

Hi everybody,
I just installed linux mint and have the following problem.
I have a 3com pcmcia wireless network card model number 3crshpw196.
It appears to work with mint and can detect wirless networks but the signal is so weak it cannot connect (1 bar).
Even though i am 10 feet (3meters) away from the router and it works perfectly in puppy linux and windows xp on the same machine.
Ive tried to install the ndiswrapper driver files (which work in XP ) but it says they are invalid drivers.
i have run the lspci and lsusb but it does not show the pcmcia card
Does anybody have any ideas what i need to do to get it working properly.
My router is currently setup as WEP for security if that helps.

Thanks

[Jay514]

Welcome to Linux Mint
I found no post here for your hardware, but found some here that may be relevant = http://ubuntuforums.org/search.php?searchid=71158386
I hope this helps,
Jay514

[remoulder]

It appears to work with mint and can detect wirless networks but the signal is so weak it cannot connect (1 bar)

You could try updating your wireless drivers and kernel as per http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 20#p255007 though it's not guaranteed to help. You would need to run lspcmcia to see the card.

[potski]

Thank you for the details.
unfortunately the updates have not worked. It still shows at 1 bar
the lspcmcia shows:
Socket 0 Bridge: [yenta_cardbus] (bus ID: 0000:00:08.0)
Socket 0 Device 0: [atmel_cs] (bus ID: 0.0)

[remoulder]

unfortunately the updates have not worked. It still shows at 1 bar

I did say not guaranteed to help! Not sure why your signal is so low, might not be a driver issue at all, though I believe the pcmcia sub-system in this release has some issues? Your card is quite old so it's unlikely there will be any new drivers. Is there any way you can add an antenna to boost the signal?

[GrayWizardLinux]

old cards 'B' = slow signal and will slow the whole network down. g or even n will be faster. That could be the issue. I have 1 b in the shed and running the old one slows all other down. system reverts back to the slowest card.

[remoulder]

old cards 'B' = slow signal

You might be misreading this, the issue is low signal not slow signal