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Problems connecting

I have an older Compaq laptop with Windows 2000. I bought a brand new Belkin 802.11G card and installed the software that came with it. I have successfully connected without any trouble at several motels and truck stops, just sitting in my car. I've gone online and downloaded megs of files at these places as well as getting my email and watching youtube videos and other stuff.

Yet, most of the time I can not connect. Our local library is one such place. They offer totally free WIFI access. No codes or passwords are needed. I took it inside and got from 3 to 5 bars (medium to strong signal), yet it does not connect. The librarian tried to help but is not familiar with Windows 2000. Although I do not think it's the operating system which is at fault. The problem must be in the Belkin software. The lights flash on the wireless card, the library's signal appears, but it just will not connect automatically, or manually when I highlight that connection and click "Connect".

Can anyone tell me what may be wrong? The help files are useless. It pretty much says to move closer to the source (I'm in the library and can not get closer), then it says to change the properties. (But does not say where they are or waht to change). There is "OPTIONS", but they are very basic, I can switch between auto connect, or manual. There is "ADVANCED options", which gives a long list of terms which I have no idea what those words mean, or what to do.

Can anyone help.

Thanks

LM

Reply to
letterman
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What model "brand new" Belkin? The supplicant that comes with the F5D7010 is pretty useless in W2K - when you install the latest W2K driver.

Reply to
Axel Hammerschmidt

The card is a Belkin F5D7010v7 The included software is "Belkin Wireless Utility - version 1.0.0.19.

I did NOT install the latest W2K driver. I did not upgrade W2K at all. The install is directly from the "Windows 2000 Professional" CD. I realize that for security reasons I should upgrade using the MS upgrades, but I have not done so yet.

Where do I go from here? Should I upgrade the OS or not? I could not find an upgrade for the Belkin utility software, although I am trying to do this on my home (desktop) computer since I can not find any local hotspot that will work.

In all honesty, I would have preferred installing Win98se on this old laptop, because it would likely run faster, and since I use 98 on my home computer, I like 98 much better. But this Belkin software is only for W2K and higher, and since I only use this laptop when I travel, I can live with W2K.

  • I doubt XP would run well on this laptop, nor do I own a licensed copy of it. However if it would run and I could get a better connection, I may consider getting it.

(The computer is a Compaq Prosignia 165. Pentium II 400mhz. processor w/ 10g harddrive, 192m RAM, ).

Thanks for all help.

Might there be some other software I can download to make it run better?

LM

Reply to
letterman

The belkin site has a series of driver downloads for the FSD7010; I'll focus on those for fsd7010v6 and fsd7010v7; where the v6 dl description includes W98 and a separate dl file for Vista, and the v7 dl description does *NOT* include W98 and is a single file including Vista

1/24/07 6xxx Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP 32 BIT, Windows 98 SE 9/5/07 7032 Windows 2000, Windows XP 32 BIT, Windows Vista 32 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit

I dl/ed both of those .exes which are actually selfextractor .zip/s and looked at what was included.

Both of them include drivers for W98. The names for the .inf and .sys files are not the same. The older version .inf looks like it is for ralink chipsets rt2561 and rt2661, whereas the newer v. inf calls everything by a belkin name. It is possible that the ralink and belkin named drivers are actually for the same chipset by a different belkin name, but I can't tell that.

Then I would use your preferred W98se, one of my faves, and dl the v7 belkin drivers from here:

formatting link
formatting link
Wireless G Notebook Card - Part # F5D7010 - F5D7010 Driver

... and use the v. 7 which doesn't mention W98

... and then use an unzipper on that .exe which won't complain about the .exe extender and unzip it into a folder. Then install the drivers by directing W98 to the folder labeled 'Win98'/

See above.

Reply to
Mike Easter

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