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g0tr00t · 05-16-2002

Question: What is the difference between the Gold and Silver Orinoco cards?

Answer: The Silver model provides 64-bit WEP encryption while the Gold card provides 128-bit WEP encryption. Other than that the cards are identical.

Question: Can the Silver Orinoco 64-bit be upgraded to a Gold 128-bit?

Answer: Thanks to Fozzy_wozzy_woo, Due to all Intermec (www.intermec.com) UAP's (Universal Access Points) being 128bit encryption and use the lucent wavelan cards. They will also accept the silver and bronze cards. (don't buy bronze...2mb only). there is no difference between the silver and the gold cards except for a function being switched off inside one of the chips. So to activate the chip to turn it to a gold card. simply take the wavelan card out of the 2100,2101,2102 with firmware version 1.61 (you can update it for free from the website) and place in your silver card. boot the UAP and wait. leave it for about 5minthen disconnect and replace old card. You now have a LUCENT GOLD CARD. that will now do 128bit encryption instead of 64 bit. at no extra cost. it does work the reason it works is because Intermec AP's work at 128 and 64 wep, and when they buy the OEM cards they are silver. However when they are placed in the AP the AP changes them to 128 Gold cards. this is so orinoco / wavelan can sell the silver cards to producers who only pay for silver. Due to Intermec and Lucent at the time working so close to develop the card they had the ability to have this tool. But I think they lost out as they hold the Patent for Duel radios and it looks like Intermec swapped the Due radio patent for a cheaper price Wavelan card and the ability to turn them up to 128 bit encryption.

[updated 6-14-2003]
an alternative method is to simply put jam your ORiNOCO card into the Airport slot of any Apple Macintosh which contains such a slot. since the Airport cards lack a built-in antenna the slot is a bit short, but if you carefully insert the card (it will be slightly tilted due to the protruding antenna portion) into an Airport slot and then run the 2.0.2 Updater, it will flash firmware 8.12 into the card, and at the same time enable 128-bit WEP. The card will still appear to be a Silver, but if you use the Client Manager to view its properties, you will see "Enhanced WEP Encryption allowed," which means you can use 128-bit WEP. Thus, the card is functionally equivalent to a Gold. Be careful not to run any more firmware updates on your Windows machine, because they will make it revert back to a regular 64-bit WEP Silver card.
http://forums.netstumbler.com/showth...&threadid=1655

There was also a set of software which was purported to work on Windows machines, posted by MartinLbb on the wifi-paris site, but it has been taken offline. I personally have not been able to make it work but if anyone wants to give it a crack feel free to contact me - lincomatic

[updated 6-30-2003]
the nextechwireless mirror of the windows-based upgrade procedure appears to be back online at
http://www.nextechwireless.net/suppo...ldwindows.html [IMHO, this method is unadulterated crap, and doesn't work - lincomatic]

[updated 20040608]
use lincomatic's alchemy under windows to do the conversion. download it from

http://www.geocities.com/lincomatic/software.html

info on how to use it in this thread:

Lucent silver to gold

05-16-2002	#4 (permalink)
g0tr00t Welcome to my nightmare Join Date: May 2002 Location: r00ting y0ur b0x. Posts: 352	Gold and Silver Question: What is the difference between the Gold and Silver Orinoco cards? Answer: The Silver model provides 64-bit WEP encryption while the Gold card provides 128-bit WEP encryption. Other than that the cards are identical. Question: Can the Silver Orinoco 64-bit be upgraded to a Gold 128-bit? Answer: Thanks to Fozzy_wozzy_woo, Due to all Intermec (www.intermec.com) UAP's (Universal Access Points) being 128bit encryption and use the lucent wavelan cards. They will also accept the silver and bronze cards. (don't buy bronze...2mb only). there is no difference between the silver and the gold cards except for a function being switched off inside one of the chips. So to activate the chip to turn it to a gold card. simply take the wavelan card out of the 2100,2101,2102 with firmware version 1.61 (you can update it for free from the website) and place in your silver card. boot the UAP and wait. leave it for about 5minthen disconnect and replace old card. You now have a LUCENT GOLD CARD. that will now do 128bit encryption instead of 64 bit. at no extra cost. it does work the reason it works is because Intermec AP's work at 128 and 64 wep, and when they buy the OEM cards they are silver. However when they are placed in the AP the AP changes them to 128 Gold cards. this is so orinoco / wavelan can sell the silver cards to producers who only pay for silver. Due to Intermec and Lucent at the time working so close to develop the card they had the ability to have this tool. But I think they lost out as they hold the Patent for Duel radios and it looks like Intermec swapped the Due radio patent for a cheaper price Wavelan card and the ability to turn them up to 128 bit encryption. [updated 6-14-2003] an alternative method is to simply put jam your ORiNOCO card into the Airport slot of any Apple Macintosh which contains such a slot. since the Airport cards lack a built-in antenna the slot is a bit short, but if you carefully insert the card (it will be slightly tilted due to the protruding antenna portion) into an Airport slot and then run the 2.0.2 Updater, it will flash firmware 8.12 into the card, and at the same time enable 128-bit WEP. The card will still appear to be a Silver, but if you use the Client Manager to view its properties, you will see "Enhanced WEP Encryption allowed," which means you can use 128-bit WEP. Thus, the card is functionally equivalent to a Gold. Be careful not to run any more firmware updates on your Windows machine, because they will make it revert back to a regular 64-bit WEP Silver card. http://forums.netstumbler.com/showth...&threadid=1655 There was also a set of software which was purported to work on Windows machines, posted by MartinLbb on the wifi-paris site, but it has been taken offline. I personally have not been able to make it work but if anyone wants to give it a crack feel free to contact me - lincomatic [updated 6-30-2003] the nextechwireless mirror of the windows-based upgrade procedure appears to be back online at http://www.nextechwireless.net/suppo...ldwindows.html [IMHO, this method is unadulterated crap, and doesn't work - lincomatic] [updated 20040608] use lincomatic's alchemy under windows to do the conversion. download it from http://www.geocities.com/lincomatic/software.html info on how to use it in this thread: Lucent silver to gold __________________ g0tr00t "Its all fun and games until someone gets killed." Last edited by lincomatic : 06-08-2004 at 01:23 PM.