WinVistaIsNotBad wrote on 2026-02-17, 16:03:

I have this Toshiba Satellite 1905 laptop i got a while ago. It came with an empty MiniPCI slot, WiFi antenna wires, physical sw […]
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I have this Toshiba Satellite 1905 laptop i got a while ago. It came with an empty MiniPCI slot, WiFi antenna wires, physical switch on the side, and an indicator for WiFi on the panel, so naturally, i got a WiFi card for it (two actually, Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 and 2200BG, but they both behave in the exact same manner so i won't mention the second card).

However, it didn't work in WinXP or 2000 (recognised and driver installs, but no hotspots are found, XP tells me to ensure wifi switch is on)

Booting up Linux and running dmesg revealed this:

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1[   32.491618] libipw: 802.11 data/management/control stack, git-1.1.13
2[   32.491678] libipw: Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Intel Corporation <jketreno@linux.intel.com>
3[   32.557207] ipw2100: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Driver, git-1.2.2
4[   32.557223] ipw2100: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
5[   32.560668] ipw2100: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection
6[   32.658931] eth%d: Radio is disabled by RF switch.
7[   32.671677] snd_intel8x0 0000:00:1f.5: intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 50882 usecs (2446 samples)
8[   32.671691] snd_intel8x0 0000:00:1f.5: clocking to 48000
9[   32.806229] ipw2100 0000:02:0b.0 wlp2s11: renamed from eth0 
10...
11[   35.544969] wlp2s11: Radio is disabled by RF switch.

rfkill too reports that WiFi is disabled by hardware.

I tried to flip the physical switch again and again, tried fn+f8 (since f8 has the wifi logo on it), checked the BIOS for any settings related to WiFi, reseated the card a few times, all to no avail. The aforementioned wireless indicator LED never lit up throughout all my testing.

I'm kind of lost now, could it be that the BIOS is somehow incompatible with those two cards? Could the switch simply be rusty from years of sitting in the off position? Or a third, more sinister option?
Any answers appreciated

It's been so long since I thought about stuff like this! 😁 Nothing comes up on a search any more because the forums that hosted this information all fell off of the internet over time.

There probably is some BIOS integration but I don't know much about the Toshiba Satellite 1900 series, which I'm pretty sure was made by Compal and does not appear to run the regular Toshiba BIOS. I know Lenovo / IBM laptops used the wireless card's PCI ID and possibly something more to identify the manufacturer of the wireless card and that check failing (the 1802 error) could be patched out to allow non IBM supplied wireless cards to work.
It probably has a whitelist to only allow Toshiba branded lucent Orinoco Mini-PCI cards, maybe? I don't know much about wireless on Toshiba laptops 😀

I can't remember at all any more how I know about this but there's a pin on the Mini PCI connector that was reserved for future use in the original Mini PCI spec but if we check the 2200BG's datasheet it does actually mention that pin 98 is the Radio-Kill Option pin:

You can put kapton tape or nail varnish on pin 98 like this - pin 102 on the back is a ground, 100 is not connected on this card and pin 98 (the radio kill pin) goes into an internal VIA:

Thermalwrong wrote on 2026-02-17, 20:53:

It's been so long since I thought about stuff like this! :D Nothing comes up on a search any more because the forums that hosted […]
Show full quote

WinVistaIsNotBad wrote on 2026-02-17, 16:03:

I have this Toshiba Satellite 1905 laptop i got a while ago. It came with an empty MiniPCI slot, WiFi antenna wires, physical sw […]
Show full quote

I have this Toshiba Satellite 1905 laptop i got a while ago. It came with an empty MiniPCI slot, WiFi antenna wires, physical switch on the side, and an indicator for WiFi on the panel, so naturally, i got a WiFi card for it (two actually, Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 and 2200BG, but they both behave in the exact same manner so i won't mention the second card).

However, it didn't work in WinXP or 2000 (recognised and driver installs, but no hotspots are found, XP tells me to ensure wifi switch is on)

Booting up Linux and running dmesg revealed this:

Copy code to clipboard

1[   32.491618] libipw: 802.11 data/management/control stack, git-1.1.13
2[   32.491678] libipw: Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Intel Corporation <jketreno@linux.intel.com>
3[   32.557207] ipw2100: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Driver, git-1.2.2
4[   32.557223] ipw2100: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
5[   32.560668] ipw2100: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection
6[   32.658931] eth%d: Radio is disabled by RF switch.
7[   32.671677] snd_intel8x0 0000:00:1f.5: intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 50882 usecs (2446 samples)
8[   32.671691] snd_intel8x0 0000:00:1f.5: clocking to 48000
9[   32.806229] ipw2100 0000:02:0b.0 wlp2s11: renamed from eth0 
10...
11[   35.544969] wlp2s11: Radio is disabled by RF switch.

rfkill too reports that WiFi is disabled by hardware.

I tried to flip the physical switch again and again, tried fn+f8 (since f8 has the wifi logo on it), checked the BIOS for any settings related to WiFi, reseated the card a few times, all to no avail. The aforementioned wireless indicator LED never lit up throughout all my testing.

I'm kind of lost now, could it be that the BIOS is somehow incompatible with those two cards? Could the switch simply be rusty from years of sitting in the off position? Or a third, more sinister option?
Any answers appreciated

It's been so long since I thought about stuff like this! 😁 Nothing comes up on a search any more because the forums that hosted this information all fell off of the internet over time.

There probably is some BIOS integration but I don't know much about the Toshiba Satellite 1900 series, which I'm pretty sure was made by Compal and does not appear to run the regular Toshiba BIOS. I know Lenovo / IBM laptops used the wireless card's PCI ID and possibly something more to identify the manufacturer of the wireless card and that check failing (the 1802 error) could be patched out to allow non IBM supplied wireless cards to work.
It probably has a whitelist to only allow Toshiba branded lucent Orinoco Mini-PCI cards, maybe? I don't know much about wireless on Toshiba laptops 😀

I can't remember at all any more how I know about this but there's a pin on the Mini PCI connector that was reserved for future use in the original Mini PCI spec but if we check the 2200BG's datasheet it does actually mention that pin 98 is the Radio-Kill Option pin:

The attachment Screenshot 2026-02-17 at 20-24-34 Microsoft Word - CX2_BG_Functional_Description3_.doc - 402835.pdf.png is no longer available

You can put kapton tape or nail varnish on pin 98 like this - pin 102 on the back is a ground, 100 is not connected on this card and pin 98 (the radio kill pin) goes into an internal VIA:

The attachment 2200bg-disable-rfkill.jpg is no longer available

Very interesting, thanks! I'll try this later today and report back. Also, i forgot to mention the 2100 card has Toshiba branding on it, but it likely came from a different laptop from a somewhat newer lineup.

Update: so i tried covering pin 98 on the 2200BG and while it appeared to do nothing from my perspective (both in linux and windows), the dmesg log in Linux changed:

1[   31.832979] libipw: 802.11 data/management/control stack, git-1.1.13
2[   31.832994] libipw: Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Intel Corporation <jketreno@linux.intel.com>
3[   31.896791] ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.2kmprq
4[   31.896809] ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
5[   31.897194] ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
6[   32.043643] ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
7               Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.
8[   32.045371] ipw2200: Detected geography ZZM (11 802.11bg channels, 0 802.11a channels)
9[   32.054739] ipw2200 0000:02:0b.0 wlp2s11: renamed from eth0
10...
11[   35.126427] wlp2s11: Setting MAC to 0e:ba:d5:7b:35:34

It's still hardware-blocked. I also tried the same trick with the 2100 card (as that's the one i was hoping to use), but nothing changed at all, even though the pin layout on the PCB looks identical. I couldn't find a pinout for that card like you did for the 2200BG.
I wonder if it would help to cover pin 13 as well, as it says "radio kill option", but i've yet to determine where that pin is on the board 🤣.
Or i'm missing something that is still preventing the card from starting.

Update 2: hell yeah it works
Turns out you were right about the method, but wrong about the pin. Taping up pin 13 only makes both cards work.

However that's where i ran into another unexpected issue: the reception (using the 2100 card) is awful. Downloading a file from LAN, the speed is around 0.1-0.4 megabytes per second, with constant disconnections making the download impossible. This is accompanied by the reception going from 0 or 1 bar to full periodically. I tried wiring the antenna both ways (pics 2 and 3) and it only seemingly made the situation worse. At least the 2100 is not useable with this laptop at all. I don't have time to test the 2200 right now, so I'll have to come back tomorrow for that.

Either something's wrong with my antennas, or the card, or both 🤣

Even if it is just the card, it would still be quite a bummer as the 2200 doesn't have drivers for anything older than win2k.

P.S. the wifi LED and kill switch still don't work obviously, covering pin 13 basically just forces the card to operate separately from the laptop's wifi controls

WinVistaIsNotBad wrote on 2026-02-18, 21:04:

Update 2: hell yeah it works Turns out you were right about the method, but wrong about the pin. Taping up pin 13 only makes bo […]
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Update 2: hell yeah it works
Turns out you were right about the method, but wrong about the pin. Taping up pin 13 only makes both cards work.

However that's where i ran into another unexpected issue: the reception (using the 2100 card) is awful. Downloading a file from LAN, the speed is around 0.1-0.4 megabytes per second, with constant disconnections making the download impossible. This is accompanied by the reception going from 0 or 1 bar to full periodically. I tried wiring the antenna both ways (pics 2 and 3) and it only seemingly made the situation worse. At least the 2100 is not useable with this laptop at all. I don't have time to test the 2200 right now, so I'll have to come back tomorrow for that.

Either something's wrong with my antennas, or the card, or both 🤣

Even if it is just the card, it would still be quite a bummer as the 2200 doesn't have drivers for anything older than win2k.

That's great 😀
You're right, I didn't spot the other entry regarding the radio kill switch on pin 13, so I'm glad you figured it out and got it working. I think it was on one of the laptop forums I learned about it and had to do it once but nothing comes up when I search anymore and I didn't test it out myself since I don't have a Satellite 1900.

Regarding the signal quality you're getting, early wireless implementations were rather bad at signal integrity - like my Tecra 8200 might have a wireless card installed but I don't expect much from it at all because it's got a very long cable run through thin cable routed through the laptop, which goes through an extra set of u.fl connectors to allow the top half to be removed. Something I used to do with these long ago was add a proper RPSMA antenna connector, on my Thinkpad 240 that I hacked wireless into, it had a round protrusion for the kensington lock slot. The antenna connector and antenna looked great on that thing 😀