[Mr.Spock]

Hi.

I did some modifications on the .inf file for all who wants to use the original broadcom WiFi driver on their WMP300N or WPC300N Draft-N cards.

Driver-Version: v4.100.15.5 (Oct 26, 2006)

The drivers works on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows systems and supports all broadcombased 54abg or 300n WiFi-Cards.
Drivers for Win9x/Me/2000/XP/Vista (32- & 64-bit) are included.
It's full localized that makes it as big as it is. There are about 70MB localized helpfiles included.

Changes:

- Area option for Germany (Europe) enabled (enables the upper 2 channels 12 & 13 in driver)
- Broadcom-service start changed to run the service at windows-logon (makes it possible to use the broadcom utility to manage the driver even when the PC is a member of a domain)
- changed the Link/Act LED function to lit on Link and blink on Rx/Tx-Activity
- some changes in german localization to fix wrong translations

Installation:
- Download both files
- Extract the BCM40100.exe with WinRAR in an empty folder
- Copy the downloaded .inf file into the driver folder
- Replace the original inf-file with the new one
- run setup.exe in driver folder to install the driver

Downloads:

Original Broadcom driver: http://www.station-drivers.com/telechargement/broadcom/BCM40100.exe

The modified inf file is attached to that posting.

The unmodified driver is WHQL-Certified.
After exchanging the inf-file the certification is gone!
Thats normal so don't wondering about that.

Mr. Spock

edit: new inf file. added location "Japan" to meet dd-wrt settings. that enables channel 14 too.

[Mr.Spock]

Forget about the Japan country settings.

Some wifi restrictions prevent the driver to use any kind of channel bonding features as long as the location Japan is selected.

In that case the connection will be limited to use 20MHz Wide-Channels only!
That results in a max. linkspeed of 130MBit/s instead of 270MBit/s at 40MHz Wide-Channels.

I don't think that one more channel it is worth to get only the half linkspeed.

The best choice is Germany with two more channels than the US country setting.

Regards, Mr.Spock

[Grendel5]

Hello! First, it pardons my English. I am Spanish and I am using the translator of the Google to pass the text of spanish to English;) I have east model of Linksys, the WMP300N and am following your steps to form it in Windows XP 64 with your driver modified, but not it with himself. I do what you say, but not with himself that my card recognizes driver. It always says to me that that is not to driver and it never settles. What I can do? Thanks

[Mr.Spock]

Hi.

As I wrote above, the driver works for all broadcom-based Linksys WiFi Cards.

There are some different chipsets used by Linksys to build their Draft-N cards.
The US-version (v1) uses a broadcom chipset, while the EU-version (v2) uses an atheros chipset.

So have a look at your WMP300N card and you will find a v2 at the end of the name.
Cause of this you can't use the broadcom driver.

I know about a new Atheros-7.0.0.119-Vista-RC2-5744 driver and about a new Atheros5_0_0_107 Win9x/XP driver. The XP driver works only on 32-bit systems.

On the other hand I don't think that the driver for the atheros-based euopean hardware needs any modification. The US drivers has no other country setting than USA available, so they work only on channel 1 to 11. The european version should have all settings for europe available so it can work at least on channel 1 to 13.

Regards, Mr.Spock.

BTW: The DD-WRT country settings in nvram are a little bit mixed up. The driver by self works in country setting Germany by default (wl country), while another nvram setting shows me Japan as the country setting (nvram get wl_country).

[Grendel5]

Thanks for your answer. The problem must be that, since there is no way to install your modification, reason why must take to the other chipset, reason why if my card takes chipset Atheros and it does not have to driver for XP 64, I see that little or nothing I can do.

You know that chipset Atheros uses this card?

I hope at least that they remove to driver for Vista Windows and they do not leave wire drawings to the users of these cards. A greeting and thank you very much by your work.

[Mr.Spock]

There are some 64-bit Atheros drivers in the dowload section on that website.
But I'm not sure about if they support Draft-N cards as well.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/down.php?path=downloads%2Fdrivers/

Regards, Mr.Spock.

[Grendel5]

Thank you very much. I am going to prove those drivers.

[CPH_Boomer]

I can see you have done some extensive modding of the WMP300N US drivers. Could you plz give the WMP300N EU edition driver the same makeover The drivers for the EU makes my PC freeze and lock up. If you need some one to test your drivers then don't hesitate to PM me.

[metronet]

I am also using the EU (WMP300N v2) driver on my D-Link DWA-542 and it works great with DD-wrt on a wrt350n.

[CPH_Boomer]

Do any of you guys have a link for the new Atheros driver ? Because I can't find it on the web been browsing through various sites with beta drivers but no luck.

[Mr.Spock]

Try the atheros drivers from that page:

http://minipci.biz/support.html

I hope they are useful for you.
There are drivers for the Draft-N chipsets available too.

Rgds, Mr.Spock.

[aamuraya]

I just wanted to say thank you for having this thread and for having re-written the driver for the Linksys WMP300N. Its been, what, 2 years since this thread was started but I talked to a Linksys rep today and they still do not have a xp64 driver for their wireless card. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU . I thought I was going to have to put XP home back on my computer.

[javs1979]

Hi guys,

I bought a Linksys WMP300N and installed it yesterday. As a starting point I used Linksys' latest driver and performance was horrible.

I then tried the modded Broadcom driver (thanks Mr. Spock !) and it worked much better. All items are translated in french, just like I expected and performance has improved significantly.

I was wondering if a driver update would further improve overall performance and stability.

I think I've found newer drivers at this page and this page but I don't know if they are localized. Packages are also smaller than Mr. Spock one. I suspect utilities are not up to date with the drivers.

So ! could someone tell me...

- Where I can get the latest Broadcom drivers ?
- How to translate an INF file to suit my needs ?
- If there is a better wireless N card to fit with my Linksys WRT310N router. Is Linksys going to release a better wireless N card than the WMP300N, like a potential WMP310N ? It's not just a matter of matching colors ... or is it ?

Thanks !

[javs1979]

Hi all,

Forget that last message.

I replaced the Linksys WMP300N with a D-Link DWL-G550 (High-Powered Wireless 108G Desktop Adapter). Found it on eBay for ~ 55 bucks S&H included.

In my opinion it's a better choice than the Linksys' for several reasons :

- Range is much better (found 3 times more APs). Signal is rock stable too.
- Stock antenna is omni-directional, powerful (5 dBi), replaceable AND, most importantly, sleek-looking .
- Installation was dead easy. You plug it in, you install the driver and voilà. No hassles there.
- Out-of-the box support by major OSes (XP, Vista, Linux (using the madwifi driver)). Under Windows, The D-Link utility is very well made.
- Less expensive.
- Since it's intended for corporate environments, I'm expecting it'll be reliable for a long time.

I believe the 3 antennas on the Linksys is a joke...

That's about it

[agsebastian]

I just purchased a Linksys WMP300N NIC for my Windows x-64 PC after being assured by Linksys tech support that I'd have no problem running it on XP 64-bit Edition.

Thanks to your drivers hack, I am now running at full speed and effortlessly talking to my router.

So, I really owe you a huge debt of gratitude. Thank you very much for your work, and your selflessness in posting it for us.

Aron