Linksys WAP11 Disassembly

This box is pretty entertaining. There's a joke that I almost feel bad giving away here. Fair warning, don't read past this sentence if you don't want it spoiled for you.

Everyone still there? I figured you would be. The joke is this, the Linksys WAP11 uses a PCMCIA card internally as their 802.11b network interface. The big box is mostly just housing. :)

That's not entirely true. The PCMCIA card is attached to a motherboard that contains a bunch of interface chips and an embedded processor. Probably it's just what they need to have an Ethernet, USB and PCICIA port. It makes you wonder what took them so long to get the WAP11 out after the WPC11 was already on the market. Maybe they couldn't get enough chips - that always seems to be the problem. Anyway, very entertaining.

Because it's a PCMCIA card, I would venture to guess that it is identical to the WPC11. That being the case, then I would say that there's a strong possibility of removing the integrated antenna from the PCMCIA cards and putting in your own diversity solution. Or, perhaps putting 128bit encryption into the NAP.

Anyway, enough speculation. Here's a list of the chips:
Top Side Chips
AT76C510 Atmel U11 Processor. Press
L80225 LSI U4 Ethernet?
12.000 (MHz?) ?? X2 Crystal
32.000 (MHz?) ?? U5 Oscillator?
?? ?? U14 Unpopulated, 28 pin DIP
Bottom Side Chips
AT29LV040A Atmel U12 Flash
AS7C34096-12TC Alliance U13 RAM?
LCX138 F? U17 Logic
H1102 Pulse U2 Ethernet transformers
?? ?? U19 Unpopulated, 16 pin SOIC, large numer of resistors and caps that are unpopulated around it... Could be RS232... but doesn't seem to match up the MAX232 pinout.
Top Side Jumpers
J5 14 pads, 6 obviously ground, others to processor
Bottom Side Jumpers
J9 24 pads, mostly connected to PCMCIA pins
J6 8 pads, all connected to pins 15-22 on processor

Opening the box isn't incredibly easy. Here's how:

  1. Remove two screws that are hidden under the front rubber feet.
  2. Gently pop the catches that are on the side of the other two feet.
  3. There are catches on either side of the front panel, push in on the sides of the grey box.
  4. Pull the front blue cover off. (this will break the warranty sticker)
The rest is pretty straight forward. Of course, just because you read it on a web page doesn't mean you should do it. Don't break your hardware.





[]Rudy Moore