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Opinions on which PCMCIA for lowest CPU utilization?

Hi,

I'm cleaning up an old laptop (a Toshiba Portege) to give away to a friend who needs one, mainly just for web browsing. I have Windows 2000 Pro on it, and it seems to run reasonably well (ok, don't laugh :(), and I want to provide a (preferably 11g) WIFI PCMCIA card with it, just so I know that it's all working beforehand.

So far, I've tested with an old Orinoco Silver (11B and WEP 64 bit only) and a Dlink DWL-G650 (11B/G and WEP/WPA).

I'd prefer to include an 11G card that supports at least WPA, so I was originally expecting to use the Dlink, but when I was testing with it, I noticed that when it was installed, CPU utilization was stuck at 100%.

I did some research, and apparently the Dlink installer installs an app named "Reg.exe" in startup that isn't needed, so I removed that from startup.

After I did that, CPU utilization wasn't nailed at 100% anymore, but it is still high... probably on the order of 80+%.

So now, I'm wondering, does anyone know of any PCMCIA card (esp. with Win2K) that would be less of a load on the system, CPU utilization-wise.

Thanks, Jim

Reply to
ohaya
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For simple web work 98 perhaps and the Orinoco or linux as that chip worlks well

Reply to
atec 7 7

Hi,

As I mentioned, I have tested an Orinoco Silver, but that's just 11b.

I was hoping that someone could recommend an 11g PCMCIA also.

Jim

Reply to
ohaya

Ummm... when the laptop is idle, the CPU utilization is close to zero. Whatever is eating CPU cycles is not the wireless card. Go unto the Task Manager and display the list of processes. Sort them in order of CPU usage by hitting the "CPU" at the top of the column. Find the process that's burning CPU cycles. It could easily be a virus or insane process.

Better yet, use either Process Explorer:

or even better, System Explorer:

Note that the latest version won't work with W2K, but version 1.4 will.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Is it that high when nothing is happening? See what the CPU usage is like when browsing through the wired connection [assuming it has one]. It may just be using the browser that causes CPU spikes. Task Manager should show which process is hammering the CPU.

Reply to
alexd

Hi Jeff,

When it was running at/near 100%, a big chunk was SERVICES.EXE, then Reg.exe, then Airplus.exe (this was with the Dlink DWL-G650).

If I killed Reg.exe, it went down some, but was still around 60-80%, mostly SERVICES.EXE.

If I killed Airplus.exe, the strength icon in the Systray disappeared, then CPU utilization went back to pretty much nothing.

From searching, I found that that Reg.exe could be killed, but as I said, killing the Airplus.exe meant no more icon in the Systray (which may be ok).

All of the above was with not doing anything on the machine (in answer to alexd's post), except running Task Manager.

I have a feeling that these problems would have been resolved if I had used WinXP and zero configuration or whatever it's called, but I think that would have been stretching it with this laptop (233Mhz, 96MB RAM). I think those Dlink utilities were not good :(...

So, I'm still wondering: Anyone have any good experience with any 11G PCMCIA adapters, running on Win2K?

Thanks, Jim

Reply to
ohaya

I don't think the Dlink DWL-G650 drivers are very good. Methinks your testing has adequately pinpointed the culprit (Dlink drivers). I also vaguely recall seeing the 100% CPU utilization problem with some DLink PCMCIA device, but can recall or Google for the reference. This is for a USB device, but I think the problem is similar:

Uninstall the Dlink drivers and try something else.

The DWL-G650 is a 32 bit CardBus device, not a 16 bit PCMCIA device. Therefore, any 32 bit Card Bus device, that has a Windoze 2000 driver should fit and work.

Off the top of my head, the following qualify: Linksys WPC100 Linksys WPC54G Netgear WG511 (and various mutations) I've used all of these with good success under W2K. Among the losers were an assortment of Dlink and Belkin PCMCIA cards all of which had driver problems.

"Troubleshooting High CPU Utilization"

Before you ask about WPA encryption for Windoze 2000, see the last article in:

and:

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the suggestions.

What about the SMC SMCWCB-G? Have you (or anyone else) had any experience (good or bad) with those wrt utilization?

Thanks, Jim

Reply to
ohaya

No experience with SMCWCB-G.

You got me curious, so I fired up my Panasonic Toughbook CF-M34 (Pentium III/800MHz), running W2K SP4, with a Netgear WG511 v2 card. When I connect to my access point, and there's no traffic, the CPU utilization is nearly zero. When Windoze decided this would be the right time to catch up on all the updates I didn't bother installing, it bounced around between about 10% and 90%, averaged about 30%, never hit 100%, and never got stuck at 100%. This is fairly typicial of such cards.

Incidentally, the WG511 v2 card and driver for W2K support WPA-TKIP and WPA2-AES, which are quite important.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Under "Secure WDS" you can add the D-Link DWL-G700AP (F/W v2.10 Thr, 30 Mar 2006) and the ASUS WL-330gE Pocket Router/AP.

Reply to
Axel Hammerschmidt

I've used a D-Link DWL-650+ (802.11b/g) 32bit PC Card on a Thinkpad 570 (128MB RAM) running W2K SP4. The supplicant was Buffalo's Client Manager

2 (v2.1). Worked fine. Now I use a Philips SNN6500 (802.11a/b/g) 32 bit PC Card (Atheros chipset) ant the supplicant is one from a Trendnet TEW-504UB USB adapter. Works fine too.

You can use supplicant from different makers, this often works quite well with W2K. You have to experiment.

Reply to
Axel Hammerschmidt

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