PC cards on vaio PCG-705

[True Entropy]

I am having problems getting 802.11b and ethernet PC cards to work on vaio pcg-705.

It looks like that cards can be set up and controlled from the machine, and sometimes
they can transmit, but data never gets in. This could obviously be an IRQ problem, but it
doesn't seem so as dmesg does not complain. As I have no means of communicating with the
autistic laptop, no dmesg is included :-)

Short history of release behaviour (all stable major releases):

4.4, 4.7 and 4.8 will not boot - spontaneous reboot shortly after loading kernel from CD.

5.0 and 5.1 boot and install fine.

OLDCARD on 5.1 cannot be compiled at all, there are unresolved globals.
OLDCARD compiles fine on 5.0.

5.1 (NEWCARD):

Sees and sets up NETGEAR MA401 (wi driver), including wep password. However, the card
status never gets to "associated". The AP sees the card, though.

Also recognises D-Link DFE-690TXD (rl driver). The card transmits to the point where
other machines on the network properly top ARP for it (ie. the card's MAC appears with
correct IP in other's ARP tables.) However, nothing comes back.

5.0 (OLDCARD)

Same as above for MA401, but has "watchdog timeout" complaints in addition. I never got
it to see DFE-690TXD (pccardd complains about "(null)" pccard ID).

5.0 NEWCARD - same as 5.1 NEWCARD.

I tried (I think) all stuff I saw on maillists, usenet and assorted websites, about
pccard.conf, kernel options, etc., although not in all possible combinations. Hopefully
someone can save me days of recomplilations.

thanks,




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