Belkin F5D6020 Ver.1 (Eumitcom WL-11000/PRISM2) & WinXP: Won't Make Sweet Love

Tholek · 12-27-2006

Howdy,

I've come out of lurk mode in hopes of obtaining some advice.

I have an original Belkin F5D6020 (Ver.1) 802.11b PCMCIA card which I used to get a fair amount of use from on my old Win98 Thinkpad, but in an attempt to see how it holds up in my current VAIO to my new Intel mini-PCI card, I found I couldn't even install it. I get a Code 10 Device cannot Start in device manager when it's inserted.

I had wondered if there could be an issue of the VAIO not supporting 16-bit cards (would be odd), but eventually ran across this article:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hard..._21062798.html

The symptoms match exactly, although I didn't follow through with the fix. I'm a little gunshy about impulsively applying a DIY registry fix for a card that is supposedly still supported. (Well, it's old, but this issue didn't just pop up yesterday either)

As generically available as the WL-11000 is/was, I saw very little about this particular problem, short of that article. I don't see any other reports of the same issues coming up for some of the other rebranded versions either. I did a search here and only ran across this, but I'm not even sure that's a WL-11000, so that made me more uncertain.

So, maybe I'm missing something. Are there are any other solutions to this problem, or was what I found a known, and accepted fix for this card under WinXP?

Specs:

Sony VAIO VGN-FS8900P3 Notebook:
Pentium M 1.73Ghz Centrino, 512MB DDR2 PC2-4200 RAM, Intel 915 Chipset, Intel Pro 2200BG Mini-PCI card, WinXP Pro SP2.

Eumitcom (Accton) WL-11000 rebranded as Belkin F5D6020 (Ver. 1) PCMCIA 16-bit card. FCC ID: K7SF5D6020

Thanks for any help.

Thorn · 12-27-2006

It could be that registry corruption is the issues, as it does happen. Another possibility is that the BIOS will intentionally not recognize the card. It is a known issue with some laptops that the BIOS will only talk to certain Mini-PCI cards. Usually, the BIOS is restricted to talking only to "branded" Mini-PCI cards sold by the manufacturer of the laptop. I haven't seen it in PCMCIA cards, but it could be a problem.

I've also had some cards not recognized by some systems no matter what you do. Usually the older the card and the older the system, the more common the problem.

Tholek · 12-27-2006

Thanks for getting back to me, Thorn.

Registry corruption is always possible, although this isn't that old of an install. I got this laptop pretty recently. I've also heard of the BIOS issue you speak of. Only a few weeks ago, I read about a workaround for an Atheros upgrade on a Thinkpad on thinkpads.com's forum. A hack was necessary to do it. Likewise,though, I've never heard of this in relation to PCMCIA cards. I'd sooner expect that on old laptops with proprietary PCMCIA interfaces. (I have an old external floppy like that that works with nothing else but an old Compaq)

As for the system, it's no Core Duo, but again, pretty recent. The card is probably around 4 years old, since it sold with XP drivers. I'd be surprised if it was no longer supportable. As the article said, this doesn't seem to be an hardware issue, but software, and XP being the likely culprit.

I'd like to wait a couple of days for some more input, but in your opinion, does that registry hack seem worthwhile? I'm not a security expert, and can't see the possible outcomes of changing those permissions. I'll take an educated guess at the least.

Thanks.

Thorn · 12-27-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tholek

Thanks for getting back to me, Thorn.

Registry corruption is always possible, although this isn't that old of an install. I got this laptop pretty recently. I've also heard of the BIOS issue you speak of. Only a few weeks ago, I read about a workaround for an Atheros upgrade on a Thinkpad on thinkpads.com's forum. A hack was necessary to do it. Likewise,though, I've never heard of this in relation to PCMCIA cards. I'd sooner expect that on old laptops with proprietary PCMCIA interfaces. (I have an old external floppy like that that works with nothing else but an old Compaq)

As for the system, it's no Core Duo, but again, pretty recent. The card is probably around 4 years old, since it sold with XP drivers. I'd be surprised if it was no longer supportable. As the article said, this doesn't seem to be an hardware issue, but software, and XP being the likely culprit.

I'd like to wait a couple of days for some more input, but in your opinion, does that registry hack seem worthwhile? I'm not a security expert, and can't see the possible outcomes of changing those permissions. I'll take an educated guess at the least.

Thanks.

You're welcome. As to the solution, I don't know, simply because I can't see it. I don't belong to the Experts Exchange.

In general, the biggest problem with a Registry edit isn't that you lose or gain security (although that may be an issue), but rather that you screw up the Registry completely. The simple solution to that is simply copy the Registry .dat files before the edit. Then, if you screw it up, or the edit doesn't have the desire results, you copy the .dat files back, and you're no worse than when you started. There are plenty of sites out there describing the backup procedure. Making an "XP Restore Point" is probably the easiest way to do it.

streaker69 · 12-27-2006

The registry is not as scary as a place to play in as everyone would make it seem to be. I've done hundreds of edits across dozens of machines over the years and have not had one bad issue yet.

If a site gives you exactly what key to change, no biggie, just go change it. It isn't like that one key related to your NIC is going to cause your entire machine to self destruct.

Now there are certain areas you don't want to go into unless you know exactly what you're doing, but making one or two changes to a driver configuration ain't gonna hurt nuttin'.

Tholek · 12-27-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thorn

You're welcome. As to the solution, I don't know, simply because I can't see it. I don't belong to the Experts Exchange.

Neither do I.

My apologies. I had been viewing a cached version:

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache..._21062798.html

You have to scroll to the bottom of the page for the replies. That's where I saw (via a Google search) that someone reported these symptoms in relation to my card. (SoccerSam16)

Enlade lays out the fix, and WooDaddy tweaks it appropriately. It sounds good, but I've not done that kind of regedit before. Mine have (on my
desktop) been all for changing icons and drive names.

What's your take on that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thorn

In general, the biggest problem with a Registry edit isn't that you lose or gain security (although that may be an issue), but rather that you screw up the Registry completely. The simple solution to that is simply copy the Registry .dat files before the edit. Then, if you screw it up, or the edit doesn't have the desire results, you copy the .dat files back, and you're no worse than when you started. There are plenty of sites out there describing the backup procedure. Making an "XP Restore Point" is probably the easiest way to do it.

Yeah, I had planned on that, but I wondered about security in relation to granting permissions. I naturally assumed that if there weren't any, there's usually a reason.

Quote:

Originally Posted by streaker69

The registry is not as scary as a place to play in as everyone would make it seem to be. I've done hundreds of edits across dozens of machines over the years and have not had one bad issue yet.

If a site gives you exactly what key to change, no biggie, just go change it. It isn't like that one key related to your NIC is going to cause your entire machine to self destruct.

Now there are certain areas you don't want to go into unless you know exactly what you're doing, but making one or two changes to a driver configuration ain't gonna hurt nuttin'.

Oh, I know that. My worries were over opening up certain avenues to hackers, trojans or malware etc. I'm not sure they could take advantage of the new settings, but again, I don't know, and wanted to ask.

In case it disappears somehow, here's the relevant part I had referred to:

Quote:

Comment from Enlade
Date: 02/12/2005 10:33PM PST
Comment

I know this question is dead, but I had the same problem and worked on the problem for a number of days. I reinstalled Win XP that did seem to fix it for a while, but then it went back to the same problem (probably after I ran some of the windows updates). Anyway, I worked on this problem and it drove me crazy because there was nothing on the web about it. However, I eventually found something that seemed to work though I don't know why. Here it is:

You need to change the permissions in your registry of one of the PCI related folders. I had two cards and the first one just required me to change the permissions on the PCI registry folder, but the second card required me to change the permissions of its parent folder (Enum). Anyway, you should try just change the PCI folder permisions first and if that doesn't work then change its parent folder (Enum). Here is how:

First with the card in, goto Device Manager and uninstall the driver.
Then goto Add and Remove programs in Control panel and uninstall the cards software.
Then shutdown the machine and remove the card and reboot.

Then click Start|Run
Type in RegEdit

Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SYSTEM | CurrentControlSet | Enum | PCI

OR

Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SYSTEM | CurrentControlSet | Enum

Highlight whichever you are going to change the permissions of (that is, highlight PCI or Enum).

Right click on it and select the Permissions option.

Now, you can change the permissions in a lot of differnet ways. I went ahead and added the Administrator Group and then gave that group Full Access. But you could also simply give the Everybody group Full Access. I think that you can change everything back after you get the driver installed, but I just left the Adminstrator Group with Full access on mine.

Ok, now reinstall your Network Card software, reboot your machine, Insert your network card and let it install the driver.

Then after you see that it is working you can go ahead and try changeing the permissions back in the same places in the registry (though, I didn't change it back so I'm not sure if it will cause the problem to occure again).

In any case, you will be surprised that it works for you, but odds are it will. I was suprised.

[ Code 10 PCMCIA PCCard PC Card LinkSys DLink D-Link Network Ethernet WinXP Registry NetGear Net Gear Wireless Belkin Sonicwall Cisco ]

Comment from WooDaddy
Date: 06/27/2005 06:28AM PDT
Comment

I had a similar situation but with a pcmcia card. So following the steps listed in Enlade's post above, instead of adding the admin group I chose the system account that was already there with inherited full and read permissions. Next, click on advanced and change the check box FROM inherit TO replace. When given the option to copy or remove, choose COPY. Bingo! I removed the card from the device manager and let the machine find it again and install its drivers. After a reboot the card started perfectly.

Comment from SoccerSam16
Date: 07/05/2005 07:35AM PDT
Comment

Good day. After a frustrating weekend of trying the above tips on changing various registry permissions on my wife's ThinkPad R40, I have not resolved the Code 10. Everything seems to work until Windows is installing the drivers for the Belkin F5D6020 PCMCIA card - then the lights on the card go from "Green" to "out" and I get the Code 10. I have downloaded the latest drivers and this card works fine on my T40. Both machines are running XP.

So, before I schedule a day to reload the machine with new OS, I wanted to ask:
1. Any other suggestions out there?
2. Since I am a bit of a neophyte, any suggestions on how to back up all of the stuff on the machine prior to starting the reload so that rebuilding will be less painful?

Thorn · 12-27-2006

If you edit it so that only the Administrator or the Administrator's Group has the option to run, it should be OK. Given Everyone permission has the potential for disaster.

Tholek · 12-27-2006

OK, I'll give it a shot. If you don't hear back from me, them my laptop blew up.

Thanks.

Dutch · 12-27-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tholek

OK, I'll give it a shot. If you don't hear back from me, them my laptop blew up.

Thanks.

Just do like everyone else.. Blame it on Sony...

Dutch

Tholek · 12-27-2006

LOL, it worked. Spread the word to all the WL-11000 owners across the land.

The problem is, I don't know which part worked. I granted permission to SYSTEM and Adminstrator, and on PCI as well as PCMCIA.

Hmm, might regret that one day, but all is well now. The reception is awful compared to my mini-pci card with its dual antenna leads, but it does work. I now have a backup.

Might get around to finally soldering that RP-SMA jack on there, to boot. (I hear the groans already)

Thanks for the kick in the butt.

12-27-2006	#1 (permalink)
Tholek Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 17	Belkin F5D6020 Ver.1 (Eumitcom WL-11000/PRISM2) & WinXP: Making Sweet Love Howdy, I've come out of lurk mode in hopes of obtaining some advice. I have an original Belkin F5D6020 (Ver.1) 802.11b PCMCIA card which I used to get a fair amount of use from on my old Win98 Thinkpad, but in an attempt to see how it holds up in my current VAIO to my new Intel mini-PCI card, I found I couldn't even install it. I get a Code 10 Device cannot Start in device manager when it's inserted. I had wondered if there could be an issue of the VAIO not supporting 16-bit cards (would be odd), but eventually ran across this article: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hard..._21062798.html The symptoms match exactly, although I didn't follow through with the fix. I'm a little gunshy about impulsively applying a DIY registry fix for a card that is supposedly still supported. (Well, it's old, but this issue didn't just pop up yesterday either) As generically available as the WL-11000 is/was, I saw very little about this particular problem, short of that article. I don't see any other reports of the same issues coming up for some of the other rebranded versions either. I did a search here and only ran across this, but I'm not even sure that's a WL-11000, so that made me more uncertain. So, maybe I'm missing something. Are there are any other solutions to this problem, or was what I found a known, and accepted fix for this card under WinXP? Specs: Sony VAIO VGN-FS8900P3 Notebook: Pentium M 1.73Ghz Centrino, 512MB DDR2 PC2-4200 RAM, Intel 915 Chipset, Intel Pro 2200BG Mini-PCI card, WinXP Pro SP2. Eumitcom (Accton) WL-11000 rebranded as Belkin F5D6020 (Ver. 1) PCMCIA 16-bit card. FCC ID: K7SF5D6020 Thanks for any help. Last edited by Tholek : 12-27-2006 at 06:43 PM. Reason: Success!

12-27-2006	#2 (permalink)
Thorn Did you do the math? Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Villa Straylight Posts: 10,083	It could be that registry corruption is the issues, as it does happen. Another possibility is that the BIOS will intentionally not recognize the card. It is a known issue with some laptops that the BIOS will only talk to certain Mini-PCI cards. Usually, the BIOS is restricted to talking only to "branded" Mini-PCI cards sold by the manufacturer of the laptop. I haven't seen it in PCMCIA cards, but it could be a problem. I've also had some cards not recognized by some systems no matter what you do. Usually the older the card and the older the system, the more common the problem. __________________ Thorn "I'm The Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I am from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation Kasterborous. I'm 903 years old and I am the man who is going to save your lives and all 6 billion people on the planet below... You got a problem with that?"

12-27-2006	#5 (permalink)
streaker69 Psychic Amish Stumbler Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Virginville, BlueBall, Bird In Hand, Intercourse, Paradise, PA Posts: 11,790	The registry is not as scary as a place to play in as everyone would make it seem to be. I've done hundreds of edits across dozens of machines over the years and have not had one bad issue yet. If a site gives you exactly what key to change, no biggie, just go change it. It isn't like that one key related to your NIC is going to cause your entire machine to self destruct. Now there are certain areas you don't want to go into unless you know exactly what you're doing, but making one or two changes to a driver configuration ain't gonna hurt nuttin'. __________________ "One of these days, I'm going to cut you to pieces." If you're offended by this post, please feel free to report it to one of the many helpful moderators of this forum. Thank you.

12-27-2006	#7 (permalink)
Thorn Did you do the math? Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Villa Straylight Posts: 10,083	If you edit it so that only the Administrator or the Administrator's Group has the option to run, it should be OK. Given Everyone permission has the potential for disaster. __________________ Thorn "I'm The Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I am from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation Kasterborous. I'm 903 years old and I am the man who is going to save your lives and all 6 billion people on the planet below... You got a problem with that?"

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12-27-2006	#3 (permalink)
Tholek Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 17	Thanks for getting back to me, Thorn. Registry corruption is always possible, although this isn't that old of an install. I got this laptop pretty recently. I've also heard of the BIOS issue you speak of. Only a few weeks ago, I read about a workaround for an Atheros upgrade on a Thinkpad on thinkpads.com's forum. A hack was necessary to do it. Likewise,though, I've never heard of this in relation to PCMCIA cards. I'd sooner expect that on old laptops with proprietary PCMCIA interfaces. (I have an old external floppy like that that works with nothing else but an old Compaq) As for the system, it's no Core Duo, but again, pretty recent. The card is probably around 4 years old, since it sold with XP drivers. I'd be surprised if it was no longer supportable. As the article said, this doesn't seem to be an hardware issue, but software, and XP being the likely culprit. I'd like to wait a couple of days for some more input, but in your opinion, does that registry hack seem worthwhile? I'm not a security expert, and can't see the possible outcomes of changing those permissions. I'll take an educated guess at the least. Thanks.

12-27-2006	#8 (permalink)
Tholek Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 17	OK, I'll give it a shot. If you don't hear back from me, them my laptop blew up. Thanks.

12-27-2006	#10 (permalink)
Tholek Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 17	LOL, it worked. Spread the word to all the WL-11000 owners across the land. The problem is, I don't know which part worked. I granted permission to SYSTEM and Adminstrator, and on PCI as well as PCMCIA. Hmm, might regret that one day, but all is well now. The reception is awful compared to my mini-pci card with its dual antenna leads, but it does work. I now have a backup. Might get around to finally soldering that RP-SMA jack on there, to boot. (I hear the groans already) Thanks for the kick in the butt.