Whirlpool

This thread, if anyone bothers to care, can be a guide as to which PCI & USB wireless card/dongles work in Windows Vista.

1) Netgear WG311v3 (11ab:1faa) PCI card - Yes, with a workaround. Download generic (not Netgear official) drivers for the Marvell 8335 chipset. Such as these @ people.freebsd.org/~wpaul/marvell

Go into the Device Manager and Reinstall the driver using these. Reboot & it will be fine.

2) SMC SMCWUSBT-G (1690:0710) USB dongle - Yes, another annoying workaround. Find an XP machine to install the drivers on. Go into C:\WINDOWS\INF and copy out the last two oemX.inf files to a flash stick. Go into C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\ and copy any files that start with "ar5" and "ath" to the flash stick. Put the flash stick in to the Vista machine and install the drivers manually through Device Manager.

3) Belkin F5D7000 (1814:0201) PCI card - Works with drivers automatically installed from Windows Update.

All drivers are for x86 unless stated otherwise.

news.softpedia.com/news/...-USB-31069.shtml

That simply says Vista won't natively support wireless USB dongles. Doesn't relate much to this thread. This thread covers 3rd party drivers, and how to get certain cards going through workarounds.

Off-topic, to get a Creative SoundBlaster PCI 64 (Ensoniq ES1370) soundcard working in Vista, extract the drivers from XP's driver.cab, and use wdma_ens.inf from XP Edit: Or as I just found out, get it to search for the driver online.

edit: hardware IDs

Belkin F5D7000 (1814:0201) - worked with drivers automatically installed from Windows Update.

All IDs
PCI\VEN_1814&DEV_0201&SUBSYS_700A1­ 799&REV_01
PCI\VEN_1814&DEV_0201&SUBSYS_700A1­ 799
PCI\VEN_1814&DEV_0201&CC_028000
PCI\VEN_1814&DEV_0201&CC_0280

Steve writes...

Belkin F5D7000 - worked with drivers automatically installed from Windows Update.

If possible, include the Hardware ID's (under Details in the Properties window in Device Manager).. 11ab:1faa means VEN_11AB&DEV_1FAA

Having problems with my dlink 54g wireless adapter, (DWL-G510) - worked fine in other builds but with 5536 it drops out in around 15 minutes, disable/enable makes it work again sometimes....

Hopefully dlink will release some vista drivers for it

Finaly got my TP-Link card to work. Had to remove the wireless network, and shutdown. Took out the card and started up again. Then shutdown put the card back in then booted up used the TP-Link driver disc added the network and away it went.

Router is a Netcomm NB5+4W which has never been a problem.

Hi, I just got vista home premium installed and I have the f5d7000. I don't have any internet and it doesn't look like the card is recognized. I have an onboard network adapter and it is recognized. I'm not sure what you mean by hardware IDs. How can I find out what my id is and is there something else I need to do with vista to get it to recognize that card? Thanks!

Update: Sorry, nevermind. I am a complete idiot. I originally forgot to even try the install CD that came with the card. Thanks anyway.

Both of these work:

Netgear WPN311 (168c:0013) PCI card -- Worked with beta Windows Vista drivers downloaded from the Netgear website.

TP-Link WN550G (168c:001a) PCI card -- Recognised by Windows Vista as 'Atheros AR5005G', works with drivers installed with Windows.

Gigabyte Wireless PCI Card. No workaround required, just pulled the drivers off the CD, however the install program on the CD wouldn't work, but if you let Vista search it will just use the available drivers.

Steve the (original) name pirate

i have the netgear wg311 V2 working.

I used the xp driver but manually installed it. In device manager next to the unknown network device i "updated drivers' and then browsed to the xp folder in the driver section and installed it.

It doesn't use the netgear software which sucks....but i tried installing that and it didnt' work anyway.

I'd say there are heaps of v1 and v2 owners out there....and i cannot believe Netgear is not gonna support them - it says they are not developing vista drivers for these users on their website.

why not just do non-compatable cards..

DI-520+'s work

Netgear WG311T's work. have to go update driver in device manager/properties and tell it to look where downloaded vista driver is.

My onboard Asus M2M32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard works great (it has RealTek RTL8187).

All these cards that work, does Vista install them automatically? Or do you have to use drivers from the net.

I'm installing Vista this afternoon, and was a bit worried about my wireless card. Its an MSI one that doesn't have Vista drivers on their website.

You need to have drivers for some, but some also have drivers included with vista. I needed a driver for my netgear card, but my friends dlink card had drivers included in vista.

just installed Vista, it doesn't even see my wireless card - its not shown as unrecognized device under Network Devices in Device manager or anything

I have a DLink 510 lying around so i might try that

DWL-G122 USB Dongle (Rev. C) works great with the new vista drivers posted on dlink's (Australian) website.

SherlockHomez writes...

just installed Vista, it doesn't even see my wireless card - its not shown as unrecognized device under Network Devices in Device manager or anything

Just because vista won't see it, doesn't mean it won't work, whats the brand and model of your card?

MD351 writes...

Just because vista won't see it, doesn't mean it won't work, whats the brand and model of your card?

Sorry, got it working

I downloaded the setup exe from the MSI website for the card and installed that on vista and it worked fine

It was in device manager, it was just in another section of device manager when vista didn't know what it was