Gateway Lt3103 wifi headaches
I figured I’d post this for anyone out there who’s having the same trouble as I am with their Gateway netbook. I’ve got an Lt3103u, though I’m assuming it applies to any of them in the Lt31 series.
For the most part, my wifi worked fine, except I couldn’t connect to wireless networks with 802.11n. This was especially weird because the built in Atheros AR5B95 only supports b/g. The Vista troubleshooter was giving me an error message of “The selected data rate is not correct”, which turns up nothing from Microsoft support, and nothing of use from Google. I tried every driver I could find, and they all gave the same error.
Eventually, I stumbled upon a modified version of the diver at http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/15297-atheros-modded-driver-for-windws-7-vista-and-winxp/. I downloaded version 8.0.0.171, uninstalled the old driver, and reinstalled driver though Device Manger. After it installed, the card shows up as an AR9285. Then, right clicked on the card, went to Properties, then the Advanced tab, selected Wireless Mode, and changed the value to “11g and 11b”. Hit ok, and the card should now work!
So what the heck is going on? I took a look at the netathrx.inf file that came with the stock drivers, and found a few lines that pertain to our card:
[ATHR_DEV_E006105B.ndi.NTamd64]
Characteristics = 0×84
BusType = 5
AddReg = atheros11n.reg, customer3c.reg, smpsDynamic.reg, htAdhoc.reg, htAdhoc.reg
DelReg = atheros.DelReg
CopyFiles = atheros.CopyFiles
*IfType = 71 ; IF_TYPE_IEEE80211
*MediaType = 16 ; NdisMediumNative802_11
*PhysicalMediaType = 9 ; NdisPhysicalMediumNative802_11
Like I mentioned before, the card only supports b/g, but from the AddReg line, it seems that it thinks it can support N, when it actually can’t.
I hope this helps someone out, as Gateway’s support seems to have no clue what’s going on.
Hi
On an unrelated topic … would you please review this little laptop? Your likes/ dislikes (apart from wifi-n;)
Other than the trouble I’ve had with the wifi, I can’t say I’ve got any complaints. The batter life isn’t the best, but it’s a fair trade off for packing more power than the usual Atom chip has. The screen is led backlit and looks pretty crisp, especially compared to most other netbooks. Windows 7 runs just fine, along with all the Aero effects. The keyboard is full sized and is much easier to type on than a 10″ netbook. Overall, it’s pretty great, though I would also consider the MSI U210, which has about the same specs as this one, but with the new AMD Neo in it.