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Date:      Thu, 9 Aug 2007 21:31:07 -0700
From:      "Steve Franks" <stevefranks@ieee.org>
To:        "Don Hinton" <hintonda@gmail.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: cheap (supported) wifi card
Message-ID:  <539c60b90708092131v1037cae8v16532e57ff34d7db@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <18107.29558.834358.66922@gargle.gargle.HOWL>
References:  <18107.29558.834358.66922@gargle.gargle.HOWL>

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On 8/9/07, Don Hinton <hintonda@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi:
>
> I recently purchased a new HP dv9500t laptop.  Unfortunately, the
> Intel 4965AGN wireless card it came with isn't supported (yet).  I
> tried to use ndisgen, but it caused a panic (both 6.2 and
> 7.0-current).

I'm afraid you are in big trouble with a name-brand laptop.  You
cannot put a non-vendor approved minipci card in it without the bios
locking you out.  I tried no less than 3 different cards before I
Google'd it and found this is a common problem - bios checks the
vendor id or somesuch and won't even boot the bios config screen until
you take the card out.  I read this happends with HP, Dell, everyone.
FIrst it was the recording industry, not laptop vendors.  Next you're
going to have to pay a yearly fee for them to even boot.

Get a nice PCMCIA or USB card with an Atheros or Prism (and some
Realtek - just got burned with a new realtek, however)  chipset and
you're good to go.  I have a $35 store-brand card from OfficeMax that
works like a charm - my HP laptop has a broadcomm in it, and I'm
running amd64 - supposedly the 64 bit broadcomm drivers don't even
work with Vista - big panic ndiswrapping them - gave up.  Just Google
the part number and chipset before you buy it.

Steve



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