I just upgraded my Intel 2100 wireless mini pci on my VAIO TR to an Atheros AR5006XS I got off ebay.  Everything installed fine and I got the card working with the latest generic Atheros drivers, but the wireless switch no longer powers off the wireless card.  I also did the bluetooth upgrade and the switch still powers that off.

Anyone have the same card with the wireless switch working?

http://kmug.co.kr/board/zboard.php?id=desktopqa&no=2355

Sorry, but I can’t read korean.  Are you saying that I should use those drivers referenced in that post to get the switch to work?  Right now i’m using 4.2.2.27

Well, I tried those drivers in that link and the wireless switch still doesn’t work, but I did notice that the wireless client utility includes a button to disable the wireless radio.

I put my old Intel 2100 back in just to verify that I didn’t break it during the upgrade, and it worked again once I did that, so I’m thinking that somewhere along driver revisions, atheros changed something in their drivers which broke that functionality.

I did some research online about the hardware switch and I found out something about a pin 13 on the mini-pc wireless cards.  According to this link, that pin is used to send a signal from the wireless switch to turn off the radio for a wireless card.

I’m wondering if the atheros card I got either has that pin moved or maybe it’s not currently wired to anything on the wireless chip.  Anyone know where I can get the pin read out for the AR5006XS chip?  Couldn’t find anything on google or atheros’s website.

Hi, I have the same problem with an senao engenius emp 8602 s plus card (600 mW power ... and atheros ar5600x chipset !!!).

I think it’s only a driver and sofware problem :

When I use linux the wifi always run and the led is on, when I use xp the wifi is always run and the led is off.

To cut the wifi connection with xp, I act on the driver properties, there is a radio off/on function.

I think that the problem could be solve with a little soft which can link the swith to this radio on/off function. I’m not be able to program this, but it seems me not impossible because Sony has made a little utility to swap the wifi switch to bluetooth.