alfa awus036h

[w2ibc]

well i got this card today. it dose work. however i noticed it dose NOT show the correct signal.

even sitting the card right next to a AP all wicd shows is 21%

using iwlist scan it shows everything as

Quality=21/100  Signal level:65/65

this card uses the RTL8187 driver.

any ideas?

[w2ibc]

well i updated the kernel on kde classic to 2.6.31.8 now showing me connected @ 58%

iwlist shows

Cell 06 - Address: 00:21:29:ED:FD:90
                    Channel:11
                    Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
                    Quality=47/70  Signal level=-63 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    ESSID:"W2IBC"
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s
                    Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
                              36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Mode:Master
                    Extra:tsf=0000000216e7f182
                    Extra: Last beacon: 626ms ago
                    IE: Unknown: 00055732494243
                    IE: Unknown: 010482848B96
                    IE: Unknown: 03010B
                    IE: Unknown: 2A0104
                    IE: Unknown: 32080C1218243048606C
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    IE: Unknown: DD180050F2020101800003A4000027A4000042435E0062322F00
                    IE: Unknown: DD07000C4301000000


not sure what the IE: Unknown is all about.

[w2ibc]

2.6.31.8 kernel has a issue i think, the stock kernel the signal levels are borked but works. the 2.6.31.8 kernel the signal shows correct, but network activity ether slows to a crawl or dies within 5 minutes...

heh...

[nightflier]

You could try to build the latest driver from Realtek. The newest one is dated 2010/10/6.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/searchView.aspx?keyword=8187

There are a few options to choose from for that chipset. I found some posts indicating that RTL8187L was to prefer.

[w2ibc]

AHHA!

updating the driver (using the stock kernel) seems to have worked

Cell 06 - Address: 00:21:29:ED:FD:90
                    ESSID:"@HomeFD90"
                    Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
                    Mode:Master
                    Channel:6
                    Encryption key:off
                    Bit Rates:54 Mb/s
                    Extra: Rates (Mb/s): 1 2 5.5 6 9 11 12 18 24 36 48 54
                    Quality=56/100  Signal level=-56 dBm  Noise level=-91 dBm

[w2ibc]

just for kicks, installed the latest kernel 2.6.35.7

had to reinstall the realtek driver again, but its working as it should so far

[w2ibc]

well, it was working but not really as it should.

found some posts where people was saying on windows the card was flawless but on *nix with the native nix drivers it was slow.

So. i made a little 15g partition and installed win xp on it. installed the card drivers. sure enough card was flawless.

downloading a 20MB file.

Linux (VL,Ubuntu,Mint,Debian didnt matter) fastest d/l speed i got was between 30kb/s and 100kb/s

Windows XP same file, d/l speed from 400kb/s to 1.2MB/s

seems no matter the native *nix driver (one came with the card, one auto loaded in kernel or the link posted above) all the same, very slow d/l speeds and after some time it will just die and have to reconnect to AP.

anyway, hooked up my server installed ubuntu 10.04 on it. blacklisted the rtl8187 drivers from loading in kernel. installed ndiswrapper, and used ndiswrapper to wrap the rt win xp driver. with using ndiswrapper, the same 20MB file i get d/l speeds between 100kb/s to 500kb/s not as good as under XP, but its not horrible slow its eh tolerable.

ended up installing dhcp server on the server, and packet forwarding wlan0 to eth0 so this VL KDE3 tower has internet along with the ubuntu server. (plus doing some php/website work its just easier to install apache/php/mysql/phpmyadmin under ubuntu)

all in all, it seems the rtl8187 linux driver needs alot more work.