GriffintheFolf wrote on 2022-10-01, 02:21:

I recently got a PCMCIA wireless card (Intellinet 524544) for my ThinkPad 600e, which has drivers based around the Realtek RTL81 […]
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I recently got a PCMCIA wireless card (Intellinet 524544) for my ThinkPad 600e, which has drivers based around the Realtek RTL8185L chipset. In theory, it should work with anything from Windows 98 to 7.

However, no matter what I tried, I could not get the card to work correctly. More specifically, in 99% of the time, the card does not even detect that there are any wireless networks to connect to. And even when it does, it effectively hangs the system for a minute or so before giving up on trying to connect.

I tried different drivers, different versions of Windows (Windows XP SP3), manually resetting… nothing served to help the fact that the card seems to be blind.

I figure I should also add that I got the card as new old stock, so any issues arising from potential hardware failure aren’t the issue here.

Am I missing something here, perhaps?

Sounds like either an incompatibility or a defective card. I could be wrong.

darry wrote on 2022-10-01, 02:27:

Sounds like either an incompatibility or a defective card. I could be wrong.

I intend to try and use some form of Linux to see if the card works at all; unfortunately finding a distro that will run under 128 MB of memory is proving difficult.

What do use as an access point, and with what kind of security settings?

I have two access points: one is a modern network with WPA2 (some kind of Google mesh system) and the other is a legacy access point with 128-bit WEP (Linksys WRT54G). Both are 2.4 GHz and support 802.11g. However, like I said, neither network shows up at all, even if I’m standing right next to the routers.

As it turns out, this thread may not be necessary anymore. After trying other methods and troubleshooting unsuccessfully, I have officially given up and will be asking the eBay seller I got the card from for a refund.

Looking at other old forum threads from back in the day, it would seem any card using this chipset should have been avoided like the plague. Really shows that I should have conducted further research...