Latest Atheros Driver 5.0.100.112d (7/13/2006)

I bought the Gigabyte WI01GT 802.11b/g AR5006EGS mini PCI-express wireless adapter couple of weeks ago and installed into my Dell Inspiron E1405 laptop. Installed Atheros driver 5.0.0.107 from the lizzi555.dyndns.org ftp download site. This driver is not totally stable on my laptop. I've been getting BSOD every couple of days. I have since found a more updated Atheros driver from the Lenovo website and this driver has been much more stable for me so far.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-52527

I used 7-zip for extract the contents. Then I installed it by going into device manager and doing "Update Driver".

The change log at lenovo shows:

<5.0.100.112d> [77WC73WW]
(Driver version in Windows Device Manager)
5.0.100.112 (Windows XP)
5.0.100.112 (Windows 2000)

- (New) Support for Access Connections 4.22.
- (Fix) EAP-FAST connection fails.
- (Fix) EAP-TTLS Single Sign-On connection fails.
- (Fix) PEAP Single Sign-On connection fails.

<5.0.100.112c> [77WC71WW]
(Driver version in Windows Device Manager)
5.0.100.112 (Windows XP)
5.0.100.112 (Windows 2000)

- (New) Support for ThinkPad X60 Tablet.
- (Fix) ACS.exe crashes intermittently during suspend/resume.

I think my BSOD was due to the "ACS.exe crashes intermittently during suspend/resume" bug which was fixed in the 5.0.100.112c version of the driver.

 

Another improvement I noticed is that the wireless LED lit up on my laptop with the new lenovo driver but not with the driver from lizzi555. Performance also seems improved subjectively (faster response time).

 

I've been using the driver from the Gigabyte website without issue. Or at least none that I have noticed. It will cause the Wifi light to flash when the adapter is on and it will be solid when connected to a network. In addition you can control the radio using the Fn+F2 key combination if you wish.

 

Thanks for the link geekydude. Kept the 5.0.0.107 Client Utility and just did a manual driver update in Device Manager. The 5.0.100.112d doesn't have a Client Utility in it.

The LED control is editable in the driver .INF file.

Also, Fn+F2 has worked for me with all Atheros drivers I've tried.

 

That's what I did too. Lenovo has their own client utility called Access Connections and there's a new version with similar date as the driver too, but I don't think it'll work on my Dell laptop. If anyone would try it out on a Dell laptop, please let me know how well it works. =)

Now that I know it's cross-compatible with the Lenovo Atheros driver, this $29 Gigabyte WI01GT card looks like an even better buy to me. Gigabyte seems to lag behind on their drivers but I'm pretty sure Lenovo would always have the latest Atheros drivers since they're such a significant player in the laptop market.

 

Well, at first I did a full uninstall of the 107 driver and a full install of the 112d driver, and I couldn't find any client utility. That's why I fully reinstalled the 107 driver to get the client utility back and just did a manual driver update. The new driver seems to be acting OK with the old client utility.

 

Here's the Lenovo client utility:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-4ZLNJB

Correct me if I'm wrong, but even without any client utility installed, you can also use the Windows wireless network utility and I'm pretty sure it'll work just fine.

 

I've never really liked the Windows Wireless Client that much.

 

How come?

 

It takes too long when logging on to connect to a preferred network. The Atheros client is already connected once logon is complete.

 

The Atheros client utility at IBM (Access Connections) does not work on my Dell Inspiron E1405. I tried.

 

Can you explain how this is done so that the LED on my I9400 will come on?

I also just tried updating to the 100.112 drivers and received a "not for this device" error when I tried it through Device Manager.

Thanks

 

For the IBM 100.112d drivers, IBM uses a different device id than the generic Atheros device id, and that's why Windows refuses to install. The generic Atheros device id is 001c, but IBM uses 1014. The net5211.inf file actually maps between the two ids. Take a look and you'll see what I mean.

The way to get around this is to choose "Don't search. I will choose the driver to install." Then choose the one that says "11 a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Express Adapter", which corresponds to device id 001c. This will also fix the problem with the laptop WLAN LED not turning on, which works okay with this driver but not with the 0.107 driver.