Broadcom BCM4320 WLAN-bg USB

11b+bg WLAN PCMCIA/CardBus/MiniPCI Chipsets

Usage: To find other modems with the same chipset.

All drivers, downloads & info on this site are found via the modem.
Each Modem Manufacturers’ page also has external web-links, where available.

General Information

This range of 802.11 Wireless LAN chipsets began with a range of PCMCIA, CardBus and Mini-PCI 11b WLAN adapters based on the Broadcom BCM4301 chip (the precise chips used are not yet confirmed). That was the starting point for this range of 11bg, and also 11abg (so-called “Dual-Band”), adapters based on developments of the original chipset, although support for the the 16-bit PCMCIA bus was dropped in later designs.

Broadcom supplied model-designs--“Reference NICs”--for each range of chipset to their OEM customers, and also provided drivers for these NICs that were guaranteed to work with a matrix of laptops, Access Points, Wireless Stations and Servers. This is the set of 802.11b and 802.11bg Reference NICs for each chipset:

• BCM4301 (11b):
• BCM94301PC PCMCIA
• BCM94301CB Cardbus
• BCM94301MP Mini-PCI
• BCM4301 (11bg):
• BCM94301CB Cardbus
• BCM94301MP Mini-PCI
• BCM4306 (11bg):
• BCM94306CBSG Cardbus
• BCM94306MPGP Cardbus
• BCM94306MPSG Mini-PCI
• BCM4318 (11bg):
• BCM94318MP Mini-PCI
• BCM4311 (11bg):
• BCM94311MCG Mini-Card

The OEM and ODM NICs tended to be straight clones of the original Broadcom Reference NICs (but not always). Clone adapters can use the original Broadcom Reference drivers unchanged across many products. Broadcom made those drivers backwards compatible to earlier designs, and also made them unified across both these and the BCM43xx DualBand (11abg) designs.

The one problem with cross-mixing drivers from different suppliers is when the manufacturer customises the adapter. This seems to be a particular issue with mini-PCI adapters that end up being supplied together with a computer, where the EEPROM reference within the NIC is customised for the Computer manufacturer. If the vendor and device IDs are the same (they usually are) then this can usually be fixed by removing the subdevice and subvendor IDs from the .inf files (use at own risk).

Extra Info

Known Problems

• GINA validated wireless networks that use certificates must use the machine store and not a user store as the user has not logged in yet.
• With certificate based networks, it is an invalid configuration to have a certificate chain that crosses user and machine cert store boundaries.
• When a user exports a series of preferred networks, and an EAP type is selected that requires a certificate, it is not possible to export where in the machine to get the certificate, as each machine stores certificates in a unique location (it is a hash function).
• When running Afterburner enabled subsystems, the TCP/IP setting within Windows must be enlarged to gain the full effect of the throughput opportunity.
• The control panel and tray application support WPA and CCX in an integrated fashion on Windows 2k, XP and later. The implementation is not production worthy for Windows 9x or Me.
• The Soft-AP feature (Windows XP only) does NOT support Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). It does support WEP.
• When disabling the Soft-AP feature, and running Microsoft WPA supplicants, you will need to wait for ~30 seconds after disabling SoftAP for the system to be configurable again.
• CCX support cannot run properly in a multi-adapter configuration.
• In Chinese and Japanese versions of Windows, installing an unsigned driver will result in bcmwl5.sys not getting updated.

Uninstaller

Important to use Control Panel » Add or Remove Programs to remove, and not to use the driver configuration tab within System Properties.

Copyright Statement

Compilation, original writings & design Copyright ©2002 - 2010 Modem-Help, Ltd.
All trademarks respected as the property of their respective owners.
Full Copyright + Disclaimer statement