Developer Forum

We need to put an Intel 2100b mini PCI wireless card (which came out of
a Latitude D600) into a Latitude D610. It had originally come with an
Intel 2200bg which we needed to put into another machine. When we put
the 2100b into the D610, the POST says installed wireless card not
supported...F1 to continue... etc. I thought mini PCI is mini PCI, like
if I bought a PCI video card I would expect it to work in almost every
PCI slot out there. Any ideas on how to make it work??

It is fairly common for notebook vendors to BIOS-lock their machines so
they will not work with third-party cards. This is partly for FCC
reasons (since the antenna arrangement was only tested with specific
card(s)) but I think mostly for revenue reasons.

The card will physically work, but the BIOS sees an unrecognized
VID/PID and disables it.

I don't think Dell does that, but their install software often check to
see if the device is 'approved' for that hardware. A change in the
install software can usually correct that.

Ask on the Dell forums:
http://www.yqcomputer.com/

Read the original post. The machine is reporting the error at POST.
Nothing to do with installed software.

It's possible a BIOS upgrade might fix it, if this is a Dell card. But
I wouldn't count on that.

It could also be a simple change in the BIOS settings would fix the POST
problem.

This is how we resolve this problem on Thinkpads, perhaps it will assist
you:
http://www.yqcomputer.com/

The check and lock is there intentionally. I would bet cash that there
is no setting to disable it.

One of the reasons I buy Dell computers is they don't play those games,
locking you into 'approved' devices. However, as I noted, their install
software does check the machine and may balk at installing on a machine
which is not listed in the install program.

I really do suspect that the BIOS has a setting where the computer
expects a certain device in the mini-pci slot, and changing that setting
would fix the problem.

My computer (Inspiron 8200) came with a Dell 1180 broadcom card. The
BIOS had that device listed as in the mini-pci slot. When I changed
cards, I just deleted that entry. It now says 'unknown device', which is
fine.

I posted the same question on Dell forums, and this is one response I
got:

This laptop has ICH6(Input Output Controller Hub Ver 6) Chipset
controller. Intel has confirmed that Intel Pro/Wireless 2100 card will
not work with laptops based on this chipset. The cards supported on
this chipsed are Intel 2200/2915 and Dell 1370/1470.