This page is for the eBay seller, "wireless4laptop", as reference for my problem with installing the Mini-PCI Wireless card inside an IBM 600X laptop. After following the instructions provided inside the auction page, I still could not get the wireless card to install properly, either with Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP. The auction page references the "Buffalo" driver, "netcbg54", which did not work. I have found a solution which appears to be working correctly. This site documents my method.
Following the instructions from the auction page, I downloaded the WLI-PCI-G54.zip file into an empty directory and expanded all of the files. I then powered off the IBM 600X and installed the wireless card in the mini-pci slot (removing the existing modem). At this time the laptop was running Windows 2000 Pro. After turning the laptop back on, the hardware wizard said it had found new hardware:
Since I already had the drivers, I selected "No" to the question "Can Windows connect to Windows Update to search for software?"...
...and selected the "Advanced" install option.
I then entered the directory path to where I had decompressed the driver files.
(the contents from the WLI-PCI-G54.zip file, inside its own directory)
And the result that I kept on getting when the system could not find/install the correct driver.
I tried this several times with Windows 2000 Pro, specifying different directories where the drivers might have been (the "MDRIVER", "WINNT", and "WINNT\SYSTEM32" directories). I finally gave up and decided to try Windows XP. I swapped the hard drive with one that I could load a backup copy of Windows XP onto and tried the same exact procedure as described above, but the driver was never found. At this point I thought about letting the hardware wizard search the Windows Update site. I removed the Mini-PCI wireless card and installed a D-Link DWL-650 PCMCIA card I had and verified that it worked correctly. I then re-instaled the Mini-PCI wireless card and allowed the hardware wizard to use Windows Update. It took about a minute before it found two "Broadcom" drivers. I selected the first one (not knowing what the differences were) and almost immediately was told that the driver was installed and that the mini-PCI card could "see" my 802.11b access point! I quickly entered my WEP key and was connected. I then removed the D-Link card and I still had a connection, proving that the mini-PCI card was working. I checked Windows Hardware Manager and this is what it reported:
At this point I am using Windows XP's built-in wireless configuration manager to establish the connection with my access point. I am planning to search for a Broadcom utility which might work better with this card. But for now, everything seems to be working properly. Now comes the fun part; taking the case and lid apart so I can install the antennas!