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RobertCF · 05-25-05, 03:44 PM

Despite what SOME people tell you, the 2003 upgrade wasn't any more buggy than any other operating system version. I have one X5 that came with 2k3 and my wife's came with 2k2 and I upgraded it to 2k3 (legally, of course). No problems, and saw marked performance improvements. Those who had problems are the exception rather than the rule.

The only issue with 99% of WiFi CF cards that didn't work on X5 with WM2k3 (or any other machine with WM2k3) was that the manufacturer didn't have drivers at the time. With the X5 there was also a slight issue with the CF slot. The patch fixed any problems I ever had with the CF slot. I purchased a Linksys WCF-12 card and the drivers that came with it didn't work. However, I did search the internet and found the generic PRISM drivers that got me up and running until Linksys finally came out with updated drivers. At that point I removed the generic drivers and installed the newer Linksys ones and everything's fine. My friend just bought the Sandisk WiFi/128MB memory combo card and ran into a similar issue. The drivers on the CD were for PPC2k2 and his X5 was a WM2k3 unit. We pulled the CF patch from Dell, then pulled down the latest WM2k3 drivers from Sandisk and it all went smoothly.

Unfortunately, I can't speak to the microdrive issue. You said you tried your WiFi card on your friend's WM2k2 X5 but didn't think to try your microdrive on it......that's going to be your quickest answer there. Since it's not much different in use than regular flash memory, I should think, with the CF timing patch from Dell to correct issues, the microdrive would work just fine.

05-25-05, 03:44 PM	#6 (permalink)
RobertCF Aximsite Major League Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 463 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	On the contrary Despite what SOME people tell you, the 2003 upgrade wasn't any more buggy than any other operating system version. I have one X5 that came with 2k3 and my wife's came with 2k2 and I upgraded it to 2k3 (legally, of course). No problems, and saw marked performance improvements. Those who had problems are the exception rather than the rule. The only issue with 99% of WiFi CF cards that didn't work on X5 with WM2k3 (or any other machine with WM2k3) was that the manufacturer didn't have drivers at the time. With the X5 there was also a slight issue with the CF slot. The patch fixed any problems I ever had with the CF slot. I purchased a Linksys WCF-12 card and the drivers that came with it didn't work. However, I did search the internet and found the generic PRISM drivers that got me up and running until Linksys finally came out with updated drivers. At that point I removed the generic drivers and installed the newer Linksys ones and everything's fine. My friend just bought the Sandisk WiFi/128MB memory combo card and ran into a similar issue. The drivers on the CD were for PPC2k2 and his X5 was a WM2k3 unit. We pulled the CF patch from Dell, then pulled down the latest WM2k3 drivers from Sandisk and it all went smoothly. Unfortunately, I can't speak to the microdrive issue. You said you tried your WiFi card on your friend's WM2k2 X5 but didn't think to try your microdrive on it......that's going to be your quickest answer there. Since it's not much different in use than regular flash memory, I should think, with the CF timing patch from Dell to correct issues, the microdrive would work just fine.