Tuesday 27 February 2007

USR 5410/5416 Windows VISTA Installation

I've been trying to make my old but great US Robotics 5410 work with Windows Vista (Ultimate Edition) and after trying several procedures, I think I finally found a solution that, at least, works for me. As always, your mileage can dramatically vary, so take this guide with a pinch of salt, it worked for me and can work for you (or not).

Here are the steps I followed (Please bear in mind you need administrator privileges for installing/upgrading hardware in Vista):

1. We first need the appropriate drivers that can be downloaded clicking HERE.(MIRROR) (You will be redirected to a download page where you will have to wait for a countdown to finish, and then click on the button DOWNLOAD NOW)

2. We will get a file named TIVistaDriver.zip. After uncompress it we'll get a folder named DRIVER.



3. (Step no longer necessary) We double click on the file TNET1130 (.INF) that is described as "Setup Information" and we edit it with the NOTEPAD.


4. (Step no longer necessary) We look for the following section (that starts at line #35):

;For WinXP
[TexasInstruments.NT.5.1]
%TIACXBG.DeviceDesc% = TIACXXP, PCI\VEN_104C&DEV_9066&SUBSYS_AB8013D1 ; B & G
%TIACXBG_PCI.DeviceDesc% = TIACXXP, PCI\VEN_104C&DEV_9066&SUBSYS_AB9013D1
%TIACXBG_MINIPCI.DeviceDesc% = TIACXXP, PCI\VEN_104C&DEV_9066&SUBSYS_ABA013D1
%TIACXBG_MINIPCI.DeviceDesc% = TIACXXP, PCI\VEN_104C&DEV_9066&SUBSYS_9067104C
%TIACXBG.DeviceDesc% = TIACXXP, PCI\VEN_104C&DEV_9066&SUBSYS_AB0714EA

and we delete (only!) the &SUBSYS_XXXXXXXX final part for each line. After that we exit the NOTEPAD saving the file.


5. We access the Device Manager (My Computer->Manage->Device Manager, or running the command devmgmt.msc), where we should find our not-recognised wireless card being listed as an unknown device.
6. We right-cling on it and select Properties.

7. Under the Driver tab, we click on Update Driver.

8. We choose the Option "Browse my computer for driver software"

9. Using the Browse button we look for and select the folder where we have unzipped the DRIVER files, and we click on NEXT.
10. We ignore the Windows Warning and we "Install the driver software anyway"

11. After a minute or so (be patient) Windows will (hopefully) inform you that the installation has been sucessfully completed.



12. You will then find the network icon on your sistray, and right-clicking on it you will be able to explore the wireless networks around.







13. I've tested the card connecting it to WEP and WPA secured networks not finding any noticeable problems. I also tried downloading a linux ISO image in order to test the reliability under stress and it performed remarkly well.

As a final note, and as far as I know this procedure should work fine with other cards based on Texas Instruments chipset ACX111.