Using UWB minicard with non-Belkin Wireless USB hub?

Let me finish now.  Sorry about the slurred typing.  Finishing an all-nighter.  Here is what I am interested in:

 

1. Anybody who has dealt with this kind of issue before?
2. Considering I cannot get a wireless USB link even with the IOGear dongle, any ideas on how to verify whether the IOGear wireless hub is still capable of wireless connection?
3. Pointers on forcing a firmware update of wireless hub.  Neither the Dell, Belkin or IOGear software seems to know there is a DWA attached via USB cable and therefore will not initiate firmware upgrade. (The Dell software does know see the attached IOGear hub for cable-based association with the UWB minicard -- it also knows it is an IOGear Hub.)
4. Anybody have any success with installing drivers from shell in Vista?  Even though there is a right-click mouse content menu item for "Install" when hovering over an ".inf" file, Vista says it cannot install based on the content of the file.
5. Can anybody point me to a good article on architectural changes in drivers in Vista?  There seem to be new file extensions (such as ".dev") and a conversion proecess for turning a ".sys" file into something else -- or something like that.
6. While I am an excellent registry hacker, one can also go too far.  I think I might do well to prune out some of the USB device instances relating to the wireless USB hub and the UWB minicard.  Sometimes a preexisting connectioni can preclude success in the present, even when the device itself will not even show up in the device manager.  In fact, devices can be prevented from being sensed for plug-and-play simply because an old USB device entry in registry gives the operating system the incorrect idea that the device is already properly installed.  There isn't anyhwhere besides within the registry itself where such information can be found and corrected.  The only approaches I know other than hand-pruning the registry would be to restore to an earlier checkpoint or completely reinstall the OS.   Neither is an option right now.  I have also used some automated "registry cleaning" tools in the past but not been impressed.  Anybody know of a good tool for what I have in mind?  Or a good article on the structure of USB-related registry entries?  One of my major issues with deleting some of these entries is that they are numbered.  I suspect that if I were to delete, for example, entry #4, the gap between #3 and #5 would become a problem.  Maybe, even expert hacker that I am, I need a tutorial on manual cleaning of the registry particularly with regard t screwy USB devices.
7. Anything whatsoever which anybody can suggest.  (I would try this out on one of my other PCs except that:  1) my PC monitor from HP seems to need a new transfomer; 2) I was able to log into my PCs remotely form my XPS 1530 UNTIL I installed teh LLTD software which  was supposed to help make the PCs properly visible under Vista. Oh well.

Thanks for any suggestions.  I know that what I want to do is possible.  A UWB wireless USB hub is supposed to be a standard device following a  specific protocol as defined by WiQuest.  Considering that Stone Street writes all the drivers, using an IOGear hub with a Dell/Belkin UWB card should not be a problem.  Yet it does seem to be a problem

 

Part of the problem is that the installer softwaer form Dell, Belkin and IOGear will not install just a single driver or two -- and removes them all upon uninstallation.    Again, I did try copying back teh needed driver files after uninstallation and creating the appropriate registry entries -- but to no avail.

 

I am searching for a command-lne command or way to use for a comman-line install.  Have not yet found.

 

Thanks,

 

Tom

Hi Tom,

 

So if I understand correctly, you are having this issue:

 

•  You can cable associate and in the Dell application you are able to visually verify an icon that shows a connection context
•  Although your Dell UWB card is connected and functional with the IOGear Hub no longer cable attached for association. You cannot connect to use the IOGear Hub.
•  You are concerned that because you installed the Belkin DWA driver for use on the IOGear Hub that you might have corrupted the firmware.

 

There are a few possible scenarios that could lead to this conclusion that I can think of off hand.

 

1. Please check device manager (right click my computer then click manage, then select device manager) and check under USB Devices and right click the IOGear Hub (if loaded) and see if it has the right driver .inf loaded. You will need the software that came with the IOGear hub for the hub so if this is the case you need to go to the WiCenter Basic folder and find the ss1dwa.inf file and load that.  Also if the IOGear hub does not have the right driver assigned it may show up in the unknown devices area of Device manager.
2. What color is the Dell icon on your taskbar? if it is red you might not have the Dell Mini Card installed properly. This may be related to the driver in which case you once again enter device manager and find the Dell Mini card and load the .inf file for it. This file is located at C:\Program Files\Dell\Dell WUSB\Drivers\WQ_ssp.inf
3. It is possible also that your antenna lead is not fixed properly on the Dell Mini Card, you might wish to check that to confirm that it is sending a radio signal. (It should be a blue wire)
4. Please verify that an icon was created for the connection context that you made using the IOGear Hub in the IBCC. The Dell application requires some user intervention aside from simply connecting the cable. Once the cable is associated you must click "Add New Device" to add the hub. The Belkin application does not require this step so it may seem a bit different if you have used it before instead of the Dell.
5. Something is indeed wrong with your IOGear Hub hardware, please verify if possible if all else fails that you can connect your IOGear adapter and Hub combo to one another in the WiCenter application. Remember when cable associating again you will need to switch back to the WiCenter cbaf.inf file located in their folder to tell windows which driver to use.

 

It seems quite evident that you have a very technical background of some sort so it should be a problem that we can fix.

 

Regards,

Aegis2010

 

 

PART #3, DUE TO BREAKING THE 20,000 CHARACTER BARRIER!   WHY I FEAR MY IOGEAR WUSB HUB MAY BE SUFFERING FROM BAD FIRMWARE OR EVEN FRIED:

• Here is my specific evidence for believing the IOGear WUSB hub is now in some form of "alterred state" (likely due to firmware over-write):

•  
  • The hub has two arrays of blue-tinted LEDs and neither any longer seems to work.

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  •  
    •  One is simply a row of indicators showing which USB ports on the hub have been plugged inot and are in use.
    • The other is beside the selector button towards the front of the device.  I believe the button is intended to facilitate switching between multiple HWAs such as the Dell UWB minicard.  The row of lights adjacent to ths button are labeled "1", "2" and "3" -- originally they just would cycle from lowest to highest.
  • I cannot upgrade (or downgrade perhaps) the WUSB's firmware because, apart from in the cable association mode and through the Windows plug-and-play mechanism (which installs only the cable association driver, my system has no knowelget hub.
  • Let me clarify this:   it seems that the proper DWA driver and necessary support services cannot be installed because:

•  
  •  
    • either the DWA is no longer declaring itself to ge anything besides a UWB device needing to be paired.
    • or else (as i believe you suggest), there may be hidden drivers for teh DWA device which cause the                                                           DWA to seem "already" 
  • My attempts to force the issue using Dell's command-line firmware upgrade utility also failed -- same reason ... the hub simply is invisible to it.
  • (Here is something which needs to be mntioned:  The IOGear hub has two slider switches on one side.  They are pretty useless:  One selects "automatic/manual" and must always be left on "automatic".  the other selects "wireles/wired" and must always be left on "wireless' -- EXCEPT when upgrading firmware, when it must be set to "wired.")

 Wow, are you still reading?  I am really hoping I have dealt with most of the notes you gave me already.  Let's see ... I'll go point by point using your numering scheme: 1.      There is NO DWA driver loaded.  Furthermore, I always restored to a checkpoint rather than merely uninstallng -- knowing from experinece how Windows tends to leave "remnants" of old installs -- particularly drivers -- within subfolders of "C:\Windows\system32" and also in the Registry.  I do not believe there is a conflict ... however it has been my concern about a bad driver convincing Windows that the DWA does not need to be plugged-and-played to install an apporpriate driver which has brought me into the nastiest and least legiible sections of the registy, looking for subtrees indicative of abortive attempts to install UWB on my xps 1530.  (I know from the past and even with Microsoft's health in one instance that too many conflicting USB entries which will never be used again -- can actually prevent successful plug-and -play.  However, any deletions I made from the Registy were done with utmost care, crosschecking GUIDs and device IDs for related components whcih would lbe irate to lose crucial registry dependencies.  Besides, I always restored to a prior checkpoint when these efforts failed.  (Right now I am wishing i had configured System Restore to save checkpoints back a month or more.)  There are no "unkonwn device" entries under USB.  USB entries in Device Manager seem okay. 2.      The "U" UWB card in the task bar is always white now -- had been green only briefly when I somehow  got that Belkin DWA driver to install -- unless I intentionally disable the device -- or, on rare occassions when , for reasons beyond my comprehending, teh minicard takes itself offline and then goes back on online within the space of a second or two.  I hear the "offline' / "online" tones but Vista and all apps continue  to function without incident. I believe the reason for the UWB minicafd go burp may relatel to his frequency ... around 5.3 GHz I think ... just like the wireless-N router from Linksys I recently obtained.  These protocols are not inter-compliant and I really do not know what thay offer in the way of packet collision.  Generally the UWB minicard is incredbily stable and I entirely forget it is even there. 3.      See notes above on using Dell Diagnostics to verify that the UWB minicard is operating perfectly, including having an tight connection to the blue antenna wire.  (I will note that, due to the extreme shortness of the blue wire, I swapped my Turbo Memory minicard over to the left wher the slot is marked "UWB" and installed the "UWB" card into the center slot.  I know that a Dell Forum poster whho as the xps 1330 said the card would work only when placed in the UWB slot,  Because Dell Diagnostics found the card to be working perfectly -- and because I have three minicard slots where the XPS 1330 has only two ... I have not pursued the issue of moving the UWB card into the slot marekd 'UWB."  From what I read, doing this will require finding slack int eh blue antenna lead, which require removing the monitor hinge and perhaps the media dashboard, keyboard and more -- not something I am jumping to do after watching onsite Dell repaimen actually break my first XPS 1530 MULTIPLE times -- so that ultimtately Dell found it easier to just build me a brand new identical replacement -- which was groovy because the first XPS 1530 was a refurb -- the replacement was totally brand new.)  Sorry ... exhausted ... rambling .... sorrty. 4.      I do not have an "IBCC" -- is this the Belkin implementaton of the WiQuest wireless connection control GUI?  As already mentioned, I got program faults trying to load that software either to upgrade Dell's drivers or as a stand-alone.  I am, however, familiar with the pocedure for creating a "new connection" in Dell's wireless connection manager.  Here is something unique which in a way contradicts what you suggest:  the first time I attached teh WUSB hub for cable assocition, not only were its cable association drivers automatically installed (as alwayas) -- but the IOGear Hub was automatically entered as a "new' device without my ahaving to explicitly add it. 5.      Unfortunately, I have been unable to get the IOGear WiCenter ever to functon in terms of pairng HWA to DWA.  HOWEVER, you make an excellent suggestion, to make sure and provide the appropriate cable associatoin driver - this I never did and it is definitely worth a try.  The thing is, as noted above, I lack as yet any way to  install an .inf file at least from the Vista shell.  So the only reliable means I have of swapping drivers is to uninstall the Dell UWB drivers / software BEFORE installing the IOGear WiCenter Suite.  I am unsure whether I ever did this exact scenario a few weeks ago.  i know for sure i never tired if after actually removing my UWB minicard -- which wlel may be necesary. I HAVE considered, however, whether there is any means of successfully "layieing" installer on top of installer that I can take advantage of teh IOGear (really "Stone Street") drivers along with those from Dell which I also need.  Unfortuantely, none of these installers is tha selective.   In the end I do think it comes down to being able to run -- preferably from command-line  -- a utlity -- probably a variationi on RunDLL32.exe -- so as to actually NOT reject all thos .inf files as happens in the Windows shell -- and permit selectivity in what drivers I actually want.   If you know something I don't about Vista and installing drivers via .inf files, please do share.   AND if I should manage to be able to get the IOGear Hub to work with the Dell UWB minicard (a likelihood since all are using the same drivers form Stone Street and many are embedding the same manufacturer's UWB chips) - I will write a dandy (and very un-verbose) "how-to" and dedicate it to you.   (Tell you what, I had a similar experience with the Linksys Music Bridge (WMB54G) a couple years ago -- it was wirelessly connected to my PC but no audio was produced.  Something I did caused it to be basically inert ever since.  I only yesterday happen to have ascertained what crazy IP address and subnet it wants to belong to.  That thing only cost $80 but it is well known for a truly problematic install.  Too bad Linksys makes great hardware, has to catch up on firmware and drivers, and the only thing less useful than their documentation is their customer support.)   What would we do without tech forums and helping one another out?   Thanks much.  

Not that anybody cares, but having to copy my document into word then segment back into Dell forum seems to totally screw up the formatting.  Sorry.

 

 I am going to go practice the art of terseness.

 

I think it's actually cool how this forum sanitizes even remotely questionable verbiage.  Where was such software when Dick Nixon made his tapes?

 

Thanks.

PART #2, DUE TO BREAKING THE 20,000 CHARACTER BARRIER! 

HINDSIGHT & IDEALIZED DO-OVERS:

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  • Ideally, I should have done a totally clean test of the IOGear dongle / hub bundle -- by restoring to a system checkpoinot prior to my receipt of the UWB minicard.  I can still see that as important -- to ascertain whether my hub has either gotten some bum firmware or else actually fried.  Unfortunately I have no checkpoints that old.
  • Ideally, I should have tweaked the "System Compatibility" settings in the properties for both thte IOGear and Belkin UWB / WUSB drivers / software.  But I had not yet learned of ths abilty in Vista
  • Ideally, I should move over to one of my other PCs and try this out on XP Pro.  But grief comes in clusters.  Not only did I lose m 19" LCD monitor in a storm, despite a sturdy APC uninterruptible power supply coupled with an APC surge protector, but I only just this week found a way to get around the hassle which Vista has been giving me in attempting a Remote Desktop login (I had to use IP address not hostname and have a fair idea as to why -- no doubt more new upgrades beyond LLTDare  going to be required to get my XP and Enterprise server 2003 fully conversant with Vista Ultimate! -- no doubt will get even groovier at such time as I dare to apply my free upgrade to 64-bit Vista Ultimate -- but that's another conversation!)  Anyway, it is excellent that I can now master my tower PCs via remote desktop (or VNC), because, unfortunately, I have tried installing .inf files as you suggest in your message -- by right-click context menu/"Install" -- but Vista rejects this.   I  believe I did finally find a means of running .inf files on Vista using teh RunDLL32.exe utility -- but have not yet attempted to test that out.  Tell you what, I am about ready to disable Vista's UAC for keeps for all the grief it seems to be giving me.  (You cannot even run a simple command like "ipconfig/renew" without "elevating" it.)  I also sometimes think Vista for all its Aero and other bells-and-whistles might be better off retired from my laptop in favor of Redhat or Debian!

PRESENT STATE OF INSTALLED UWB DRIVERS / SOFTWARE AND HUB FUNCTIONALITY:

•  
  • The way things are now.  Right ... enough of the way things aren't and all the dumb reasons why they aren't.  For now ... even though the Belkin driver is no longer installed, and I backed out, using checkpoint system restores, of the installations I had tried of both the Belkin and IOGear UWB / WUSB suites -- and even thoughand the IOGear WUSB hub continues to make proper cable association connections, I do fear that, when I later attempted to install a Belkin driver update -- which was entirely aware that it was to update a Dell minicard installation rather than do a dongle-based update -- a silent firmware upgrade (which it seems these UWB / WUSB driver installers all ome equipped to do.

PART #1, DUE TO BREAKING THE 20,000 CHARACTER BARRIER!   (I am impressed that you know UWB from a multi-vendor point of view ... without prying, how did you come upon such knowledge?  I only know what I know out of necessity and the unwillngness to spend another $150 to get the Belkin UWB / WUSB hub.)     DISCLAIMER:  Sorry so many words.  There was so much to say because I had tried so many things.   (Now I KNOW I have turned into an IBM mainframe manual.  Hold on ... "this page intentionally left blank."  YES!)   Thank you for your very kind and detailed information, suggsted diagnostics and potential procedures for unnjamming the hub and / or its driver donfiguration.  At the outset, I must confess that I am without sleep the past couple days while completing a deliverable.  I fear that I will leave a trail of charactersssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss (like that) and then submit the unfinished reply and that my spelling will not be as good as usual -- but I do want to proceed and it  is good to be communicating with somebody who has expertise in this are.  That said ...   Yes, this is indeed a complex situation and ... I need to start by clarifying the state my system is in now with regard to both the UWB minicard and the IOGear UWB hub.  It is not exactly as you had stated in your message:   VERIFICATION OF A FULLY-FUNCTIONAL UWB CARD:

• UWB Minicard passes all Dell Diagnostics.  I have verified that the UWB card is functional in every way.  I did this by shutting down my laptop and then restarting while holding down the function ("Fn") key to initiate the diagnostic mode.  When base diagnostics are complete, a GUI-oriented diagnostic mode opens.  Within this, tests on all USB ports and devices can be found.  Specific to the UWB card are several tests.  I don't recall the specific names of all of them, but all were passed.  (This was GREAT because I had to ask Dell to send a replacement for the first UWB minicard they sent, which -- since all these cards are evidnetly refurbished -- seemed to have a crimped antenna socket so that the antenna wire could never successfully be attached.)  However this was not the case with the replacement, which was simple to install, and it is perfectly functional -- according to diagnostics at least.
• UWB Minicard passes all diagnostics offered under Dell's Wireless USB Manager Settings/Options/Diagnostics.  Except of course connecting with the IOGear Wirelesss Hub.
• Additonal command-line checks verify a functional UWB minicard / HWA driver and missing wireless USB hub / DWA driver.  There are a number of console-oriented executables in teh "Utlitities" folder of the UWB card's driver folder, found at "C:\DELL\drivers\R167729\APP\Utilities".  Some of these utlitity commands present the same functionality to be found in the Dell Wireless Connection Manager, some give much finer-grained control andi include diagnostic modes.  Among these, in the order of those I found most useful are:

•  
  • WQ_FwUpd.exe, WQ_FwUtl.exe, WQ_tool.exe, WDevclean.exe.  (Also contained is WQ_tray2.exe, which launches the UWB "U" icon and loads into the system tray the Dell Wireless Connectin Manager.

FORMER STATES OF INSTALLED UWB DRIVERS / SOFTWARE AND HUB FUNCTIONALITY:

• Belkin DWS driver only briefly installed and functional. While I did at one time somehow manage to install a Belkin DWA driver from Windows Vista's own driver stores, I made the two mistakesf:

1.      Not documenting the steps I took to engineer the installation of the Belkin DWA driver; 2.      Restoring my system to a checkpoint prior to when the Belkin driver was installed, believing that I needed to do that in order to have the hub sensed for plug-and-play (what I call "plug-and-plug-and-plug-and-plug-all-night-and-day"!) so as to properly install not only the DWA driver but also Windows services to support the connection (i forget their designations but they are referenced in the .inf file.)

• Level of functionality I saw while Belkin DWA driver was installed. It really is a shame that I restored to an earlier checkpoint (this was a few weeks ago before I became utterly frustrated) because, while the Belkin DWA driver was in place, that was the only time the UWB minicard "U" icon ever turned green and the hub icon, viewed within the Dell minicard connection window would stop being greyed out and a "connected' icon with radio waves surounding it would appear there.  It seems this icon would come and go according to whether the IOGear hub was plugged into its transformer plug or not -- so yes, there had to be a genuine connection -- but something crucial was mising.  If only my Western Digital pocket drive or Maxtor terabyte USB drive had then become accessible on my laptop when I plugged it into the wireless USB hub -- bit alas, no USb device I tried to access via the wireless hub was detected.   I do believe this is because the needed Windows service never got installed -- due to the accidental a la carte nature by which I had managed to get the Belkin DWA driver installed.
• Other software / drivers I attempted to install.  It did make sense to attempt to get whatever service(s) and / or driver(s) had been misisng through the most natural means -- installing vendor software intended to do this.  There were two vendor suites which made sense:

•  
  • The installer for the Belkin wireless USB hub with dongle.  Due to having read posts in the Dell forum, knowing that the Belkin wirelss USB hub is documented to work with Vista, it made sense to download a product upgrade from Belkin.  Sensing the Dell UWB minicard and no UWB dongle, the installer was smart enough to know not to install its own connection manger but to merely upgrade Dell's drivers.  Unfortunately, when done, this cause a program fault.  Sorry, I did not write down the error code -- it spoke of a basic incompatibilty and I did not take the time to investigate whether this pertained to running on Vista, a .NET version, a DLL version or even versionis of the driver software itself.  I am sure I could recreate this scenario with ease.
  • Reinstalling the Belkin UWB / WUSB hub suite after  uninstalling both the Belkin and the Dell UWB / WUSB hub drivers / software.  Would have been nice if this approach had worked but it resulted in its own program faults -- disimilar to those encountered when upgrading the Dell UWB mincard driver.  But, in fact, I believe that, past simply starting Belkin's connection manager, trying to do anything substantive such as cable associate the hub -- simply caused the software to crash.
  • Installing the IOGear drivers / software to attempt to plug-and-play register the IOGear WUSB hub and install the DWA driver and associated service(s).  IOGear's WiCenter installed and did not crash.  However, it could not associcate with the wireless USB hub at all.  Figuring that WiCenter expected to associate IOGear's dongle and hub only, I exited the Dell Wireless Manager and disabled all the Dell-specific UWB drivers I could locate via Windows Device Manager.  This made not difference.  Nor did totally uninstalling teh Dell UWB drivers / software.  So I tried uninstalling everything and then installing the IOGear WiCenter Suite ... but the hub could stil not be found via cable association.  I am kind of figuring now that, had I removed the UWB card from my laptop before uninstalling all this UWB software and reinstalling  WiCenter -- still an option if it can get the needed DWA driver in place.
  • Cloying attempts to force the DWA driver into place.  Like the too-patient software developer I am, not recognizing when I am in over my head, I repeated all these fiascos and in particular tried every which way to woo the Belkin DWA driver which Vista had originally installed for reasons I wish i ahd written down.  I tried all the various wireless communications suites repeaedly -- until other pessures forced me to leave off trying to make wireless USB into a reality within my lifetime.  Now, after a few weeks away from it, and especially with typing all these notes, I CAN see various things I can redo in a differnt way so as to ensure there is no contamination from one UWB.  This is where  I become really dangerous and end up doing wheelies while spinning my wheels -- thus my post on the Dell forum.  Somebody has to know more than me about the UWB / WUSB thing ... and somebody seems to be you.

Okay, let me ask the truly salient question I continue running Windows Vista 32-bit, I to b unable to manually, selectively install UWB drivers fom Windows Explorer (right-click / "Install") or from the commadn prompt using this

 

RunDll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 ss1dwa.inf

 

(132 = "prompt for reboot" )

Using "runas" to bost myself to administrator does not help.   Turning off UAC does not help.

 

Nothing I have read about after some very specific googles comes close to working  From Explorer, we get teh meessage:

 

The INF fie  you selected does not support this method of installation. 

 

Running from comand shll yields "Installtaion failed.

 

I can go the long route of using complete prducut inslalller butzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzzzz'

 

Anywat, if you ahve q way for mt to gerent the eiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiw

I'm sorry to hear you are having so many problems with your setup.  There are a couple of things to verify to start:

 

Is your IO-Gear Hub working?  If it is not, you may be wasting a lot of time trying anything else.  My IO-Gear Hub main LED is on and the 1 2 3 LEDs cycle when it is not connected (set to wireless and automatic mode; the cable must NOT be connected for this to work).  

 

When I have it set to wired mode, it functions as a normal wired hub for me.

 

You might see if you can update your IO-Gear Hub using the latest IO-Gear hub-only installer and drivers:

http://www.iogear.com/support/dm/driver/GUWH104  (I am using 1.01; I don't know of a way to use any other version since I don't have any tools for other versions.)

 

You might also try to make sure your IO-Gear hub is working with your IO-Gear usb adapter.  If it is broken, it is never going to work with your Dell WUSB.

 

Regarding getting the IO-Gear Drivers (Stone Street One) to work:

 

I know that Stone Street One has some restrictions for licensing for using their drivers.  I believe you MUST use the installer to install their drivers; it installs some kind of license required for the .sys files to work correctly.  Hacking the Stone Street One drivers in is likely never going to work. 

 

Let me know if you get the hub to a working state (leds working as expected); we can go from there on getting it to connect to your Dell Wireless 400 host.  You might private message me to discuss that if you get to that point.

 

Good Luck.

 

 

 

 

I tried to install the IOGear driver / firmware update you reference a few weeks ago.  Would not work because Vista thought it to be a 64-bit driver set even though marked clearly as 32-bit.

 

My hub used to cycle its lights as you mention.   I never tested it as a wired hub back then.  It will not work as a wired hub now.  All it seems to be able to do as a cable association.  I think it would still do a wireless connect if I could get the right Belkin driver back in place as I once had it.  I suspect however than installing the Belkin software suite for wireless USB, after completely uninstalling the Dell UWB card, was probably what alterred my IOGear hub's firmware so that it no longer cycles the lights.  For that matter, the lights indicating a USB cable inserted into a port don't even light.

 

I suspect the hub's hardware is still completely functional.  Only way to get it back to where it was is to install the IOGear wireless USB suite and see if that will do a firmware upgrade back to where it started.  Actually I was in the process of doing this over a week ago -- figuring that perhaps the only way to verify whether I had functional hardware and eliminate both Vista and and my Dell UWB minicard from the equation -- would be to install the whole thing on my XP machine.

 

So funny -- before I could complete this, I had a bad Vista problem -- WMI was incredibly corrupted after a WIndows Update -- involving audio -- and disabling my audio card as well as system restore.  I ALMOST got WMI fixed using Microsoft's WMIDiag.vbs script -- but making the changes to the WMI subdirectory of C:\Windows\system32 ultimately caused an uncorrectable bluescreen -- could not repair, could not restore, could not use the Vista install disk to repair because I could not uninstall SP1 -- I was barely able to get my data off onto a USB drive in fact using Recovery Console.

 

After I finally wiped my hard drive to do a complete reinstall, I figured why not try the 64-bit Vista Ulimate disc I just received from Dell.  Too bad Dell's drivers and utlities are not completely compatible with 64-bit -- and that I didn't have time to twiddle with it.  I regret that, before I wiped again and reinstalled 32-bit Vista, I did not at seize upon the opportunity to see if I could install that IOGear driver / firmware update which 32-bit Vista insisted was 64-bit -- but 64-bit Vista would probably have insisted the IOGear package was compatible only with a Comodore 64 or one of those ancient pre-PC Osborne CP/M devices.

 

So ... long story short, now that I am back up on Vista 32-bit, I can go complete my test with the IOgear hub and dongle on my XP machine. (Could not do that before because my HP 19" monitor and HP LightScribe DVD/RW drive both went fault at the same time about a month ago.  Can work with XP machine only via RDP or VNC.  You really needed to know all this, right?)

 

In the end you are right, this could be a lot of wasted time for nothing.  I've had this happen with other wireless devices which just never would work as they were supposed to. And actually, I bought the IOGear wireless hub at a CompUSA going out of business sale -- so if I had to invest in the Belkin hub it wouldn't be so awful. Only I wish Belkin would just sell the hub minus the dongle.

 

Thanks for your suggestions.

 

 

(perhaps also killing one of my speakers because