Atheros Wireless N Card - Page 7

I also used to have problems with the GN-WI01GT in my Dell XPS M1210. Parity errors randomly, even just sitting idle. Took out the card, and put in a Dell 1505, and it's been fine ever since.

Yes, everything on the 655 is set correctly. 40mhz, 2 channels, using channel 1. Like I said, my Dell 1505 Wireless-N card always connected in "n mode" without problems, and would sustain a 243-270mbps connection while transferring large files. I did figure out a way for my new Gigabyte card to connect to the 655 in "n mode"--set the 655 to "n only", set to WPA or WPA2 (auto)" and set key to AES. That's the only way it will connect in "n mode". I hate having no client utility. The Dell 1505 had a great utility that showed me all sorts of connection stats, etc.... I need my 655 to be in "g and n" mode though...I can't restrict "g clients"....

Oh, one other question regarding transfer rates--on my gigabit wired network, I can transfer a giant (500MB+) file at about 10MB/sec (according to the Vista file copy window). When transferring the same file over Wireless N, connected at 300mbps, from my server to my notebook, I get about 5.1MB/sec.

Does it seem normal for the wireless N speeds to be about half the wired gigabit speeds?

Yes the Dell 1500 is a very good card, Now that I have the driver sorted. It logs on almost instantly after a resume from standby. When booting the card is also logged in by the time the desktop pops up. Same can't be said for the Atheros cards. If I slow the Atheros card down to 130Mbs the parity error takes longer to happen and even longer when set to 54Mbps. Setting the receive buffers to max also delays the parity error. But nothing seems to actually fix it. The Dell client utility is pretty useless as it only displays the connection stats. No log in ability But again better than Atheros which has nothing at all in Vista That looks about right. On a good day with tweaked driver I got 65Mbps = 8MB/s from the Atheros card. This was in WinXP where the card works, but has issues here as well (only minor ones) The Dell 1500 got to 55Mbps = 7MB/s I'll have a play with the security settings and see how WPA 1/2, WEP and no security do to the card. Luckily for me I have an abgn router, I can play with this on 11a and the wife will never know on 11g where the printer also lives. I must have a working router for the Mrs or my life is forfeit In the meantime any Atheros owners with issues (even non Dell ones) should pop in for a visit. hopefully Atheros will take some note, they won't prioritise this issue if there are but a handful of us.

Latest 6 and 7 series
v7.3.1.73 = 30th July
v6.0.3.107 = 23rd July

The drivers take sometime to come out to the OEM's as you can see above.

First, I'm thinking of staying with the 1505 Dell-N card. What "tweaked" driver are you using? Is there a special INF, and have you documented all your "tweaks" so others can try them? Second, the Dell Client utility is pretty nice, actually. The Site Monitor tab is invaluable for me, as it shows all AP's that it can find, plus their capabilites (A/B/G/N) and their MAC address and signal strength. If a building has 10 AP's with the same SSID, this tool will show me all 10 of them, instead of "Available Networks" only showing one. I'm not sure I want to fool around with the Atheros much more...no options, not very configurable, no client utility and, for me, no practical way to access "N" speeds.

I'll dig up my modded Broadcom INF, have to remember my changes as I've been wasted many an hour with these Atheros cards.

Should also be able to get an Atheros INF out to enable all the known settings.

Atheros Modded INFs for Vista x86 and x64 are up and over here

These should enable all tweakable settings that I know of.

http://www-uk.linksys.com/servlet/Sa...#versiondetail

The Utility included in this driver may work for the Atheros card...not sure though as I haven't tested...


BTW: Select V2 hardware from the link...

Pieter,

I was wondering if you have tried lowering the mw the atheros uses?
If I remember correctly, I was able to drop the voltage down from 100mw to 80mw using the XP client utility.
I did this right before switching to Vista (which doesn't have a client utility so I couldn't do it again) but if I remember correctly... I didn't have a parity error for those 2 days before making the switch to vista.

So, is there a way to test this with this version of the Atheros cards (either a inf tweak or ???)?

Just a thought.

D.

This is a no go in Vista x64, get so close to it working but is missing some files that all my compressed CAB hacking cannot get to.

I see those settings in XP, 11g upto 100mW and 11a upto 60mW.
I'll play with this some more in XP to find the registry keys.
But no Client ultility in Vista = no power control, except for my universal one, I made up from unistall settings.


I would think not, I can't get the card to work from the start and modding various things delays it at least.
You won't know till you try.
But if it aint broke don't fix

I installed Vista x64 SP1 (3.8GB download) yesterday.
The NMI error still happens but changes name to IOCheck error not Memory error as before.

Also discovered yesterday for the 1st time that Windows will find a driver for the Sparklan card online and it's v7.2.0.197 (March '07)
This driver also doesn't work

So no further really.

Went a head and bought a 1505 card from ebay.
Hopfully it will work fine with win xp.

The Broadcom based 1505 cards work fine with XP and Vista.
I did have issues with the Dell Vista drivers.
With Vista I either use the build in ones or my modded one.

The Atheros work pretty good in XP as well, Atheros cards are faster than the dell 150x cards but for surfing this will never be noticed.

Thank you for all the work you put in exploring and explaining differences. I based my choice on what you found out. I really don’t care about the extra speed the atheros provide since I don’t have a N-router yet. Just a netgear 108 rangemax. It just seems like de 15xx is a bit more stable.

Well I got a time wasting reply from gigabyte, they asked what driver I'm using, despite the fact there's only 1 driver available at the moment (from them), and since I told them it's been 2 days without any reply. If they can't fix it I'm asking for a refund, I bought it as a card that advertised vista compatibility and that's what I expect, maybe if we all bug them they'll actually acknowledge the problem.

I just read through the entire thread and am not sure if anybody tried using the Dell Wireless 1505 with an Atheros chipset 802.11n router and if so what transfer speeds they received.

I was hoping to pick up the Gigabyte card for my 9400 but it sounds like almost everybody is having nmi errors problems. One quick question though for those getting the NMI's, are you using the latest bios for the laptop? Intel had a known bug which a bios update fixed.

Edit: The i9400 only has 2 antenna's, is that a problem? If not then which 2 ports on the card should I use?

I'll probably get a Belkin N1 to try out with all these WLAN cards, it's Atheros based.

I'm on BIOS A09, updating Chipset drivers didn't fix it.
The NMI does change with Vista SP1 to an IOcheck error from a memory error.
The problem is with Atheros as Broadcom cards work.

Aerial connectors, get another aerial from OxfordTec and put this in the i9400 lid hinge (centre) fits here perfectly and then you can use all 3 aerials at once. (I am)

Whatever you do, stay away from the N1. I got one of those, and the big problem with it is it has no gigabit ports, so you never really get "N" speeds! Check out MaximumPC's latest issue...they review N routers. Of all the ones i've tested myself, including the N1, I settled on the Dlink DIR-655. Maximum PC liked it the best, also.