_techie_ Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 we have some laptops for our science dept. Some of the wired lan sockets have broken, due to accidents and misuse. They also have wireless on board, but has anyone got PXE over wireless working at all? I don't think it is possible since Windows needs to know the SSID of the AP before it connects to it. Is it possible to point RIS or to use this or an alternative?
sparkeh Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 AFAIK there aren't any wireless adapters that support PXE, well since I last looked but that might have changed. The usual workaround is to use a wireless bridge but if your wired adapters are broken (is that what you meant?) then this isnt an option.
Michael Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 I don't think it would be possible, even if the network was unsecure because you'd need both a driver and some form of software to search for wireless networks. And as for using RIS over wireless, it would probably take days (depending on the size of the image). Wireless just isn't designed for this. It's bad enough pushing some MSIs over wireless
SYNACK Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 Just get a PCMICA network card with PXE to use for imaging, Probably the cheapest way of fixing it and you can remove them to prevent damage if they are logging on with wireless after imaging.
Martin Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 Don't you need drivers (which the operating system normaly loads) to get a PCMCIA card to work in the first place? mb
SYNACK Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 Don't you need drivers (which the operating system normaly loads) to get a PCMCIA card to work in the first place? mb PXE interfaces with the BIOS directly the drivers are only needed later to give the host OS that is provided by PXE access to the network when it has booted.
powdarrmonkey Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 PXE interfaces with the BIOS directly the drivers are only needed later to give the host OS that is provided by PXE access to the network when it has booted. However, the BIOS still needs to know how to connect to the WLAN, etc, so at the moment it can't be done.
SYNACK Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 However, the BIOS still needs to know how to connect to the WLAN, etc, so at the moment it can't be done. Oh sorry I meant to say 'wired' PCMCIA network card, I agree with Michael that the imaging process could take forever using wireless. You can also get gigabit ones now that may improve the imaging speed further depending on your network.
Martin Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 Well according to Microsoft "Because the current PXE specifications do not support PCMCIA adapters..." ...have you actually got a PCMCIA card to PXE-Boot? mb
SYNACK Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 Well according to Microsoft "Because the current PXE specifications do not support PCMCIA adapters..." ...have you actually got a PCMCIA card to PXE-Boot? mb Ah, I was certain that I had used one that did but I must be mistaken. Its old age, I'm sure of it
Martin Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 _techie_ why not simply plug a small hub (or switch) into one of the working network ports and deploy via that? mb
sparkeh Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 why not simply plug a small hub (or switch) into one of the working network ports and deploy via that? Oh perhaps I misread, I thought the wired NICs were broken?
FN-GM Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 _techie_ why not simply plug a small hub (or switch) into one of the working network ports and deploy via that? mb I think its the actual port on the laptop.
SYNACK Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 Here: Argon Technology - Products This one seems to support it, maybe the memory loss has not taken hold completely 1
browolf Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 what about usb-lan adapters? would they work...
Michael Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 To be honest (in the circumstances) I would extract the hard drive and perform a disk to disk image. Sysprep itself doesn't support wireless (as far as I am aware), but you could still login to Windows locally, join the wireless network, then join the domain and it should be job done
powdarrmonkey Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 _techie_ why not simply plug a small hub (or switch) into one of the working network ports and deploy via that? mb Because a laptop generally only has one? I'd go with a disk-to-disk; it'll be faster anyway, and laptop disks arent exactly difficult to get at. A USB NIC might work, depends on your BIOS, but you will have to inject drivers into your deployment environment first.
tmcd35 Posted January 22, 2009 Posted January 22, 2009 what about usb-lan adapters? would they work... Probably not. The NIC needs an onboard PXE Boot Rom. Not an awful lot of room in a USB-LAN adapter for a rom chip Besides these adapters probably won't work at boot. Generally they need windows drivers to run.
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