Wireless Card Shutting down Old Laptop
 

I recently dusted off my 8 year old Laptop for use strictly as a web browser and emergency backup. I spent an evening downloading all the updates and drivers I could find to make it go and was succsessful.

Here's its basic info:

Model: Eurocom 1200
Processer: AMD K6 3D - 180MB RAM
OS: Windows 98/SE

It works just fine but here's the catch. Everytime I turn it on with our Lynksys WirelessB card in the slot, it abruptly shuts down as Windows is opening. It will also shut off if I insert the card after booting. The wired network card does work however.

My guess is that the card draws too much power and is "tripping the breaker". Is this a case of incompatible generations of technology, or might there be a power setting that I can adjust to accomodate the extra draw?

I'd suspect the driver. Uninstall it completely. Now does installing the card still cause the problem? Assuming not, start installing drivers from the newest back until it stops shutting down. Remove completely before trying each rev.

I inserted the card (no software installed) and it didn't shut down the computer. The new hardware wizard came up and prompted to search for a driver. I wasn't online at this point so I cancelled out of the wizard.

On a hunch, I pulled the card and inserted it into the other slot. The computer immediately shut down to reboot. Now it's behaving again like it did before, consistantly forcing a hard reboot.

Right, you'll have to manually download older versions. The automatic download will pull the most recently approved version and win98/me support is becoming pretty dicey. They might have qualified some abortion of a release on a pristine machine that won't work if the wind's blowing wrong. Go to their support section and grab a couple previous releases.

Unfortunately, the Linkys site only offers the latest driver. I guess I'm SOL. :|

Thanks for your help.

Which card is it? Other sites sometimes archive old drivers that the vendor no longer provides.

WPC11 ver.4 Wireless B Network Adaptor

Looks like it's made by RealTek. Give this a shot. I didn't dig out which version LinkSys is providing but RealTek has two or three here:

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...x?Keyword=8180

Thanks Cyrnel, I think the end is in sight.

Unfortunately, I've found myself back at square one. After installing the driver, I was able to activate the card and even recognize the network.

But for some reason I couldn't enter the WEP key in the field. It was open (not greyed out) and I could place the cursor there, but was unable to type.

I clicked okay and I seemed to be online. But when I tried to open Explorer, my homepage wouldn't load. Absentmindedly, I clicked on the "Detect Network Connections" link on the default error page.

The computer immediately shutdown. :rolleyes:

I've uninstalled and reinstalled the driver and removed the other network adapter devices through the device manager to no effect.

I'm not sure anymore what needs to be inplace for the card to trigger the new hardware wizard rather than a shutdown.