Atheros Wireless N Card - Page 11

OK pieter,

Just installed the WI01GT again and installed your modded driver v1.12
So far just surfing onto this site and laptopvodeo2go to read your review of the 655.

I am going to try some online gaming to see what the speeds are and if I get a parity error.

Will edit this post in a few

D.

edit:
Ok, just played a bit in quakewars demo and speed so far seems fine.
But, I now get a "error: MapFile1 access denied" error.
The web says it is linked to ATI video drivers, but as I am using an E1705 with a Quadro2500M, this cannot be the case,
The only thing I have done differently so far is install the modded wireless driver and card.

Will post back as more info becomes available.

Those are great speeds. The problem is, your comment about the Gigabyte card not working well on non-Atheros routers. Notebooks do travel, and chances are, they won't be connecting to Atheros routers out in the wild. So when at home, things are good, but away from home, as notebooks generally are, things don't look so good? Also, any chance you could post your WLAN card properties so we can see what options you have chosen to get your awesome speeds? Thanks!

Are you talking MBytes or Mbits ? Here are my results from my mini review of the card from over here Broadcom BCM94321MC, Dell 1500 WLAN Distance from Router--------00--------03-------10--------15-------20---- A Band 40Mhz Bandwidth--270/056--243/056--162/054--108/054--000/000- A Band 20Mhz Bandwidth--130/046--117/046--078/052--039/024--026/017- G Band 40Mhz Bandwidth--270/056--270/056--270/056--270/050--040/019- G Band 20Mhz Bandwidth--020/040--078/029--130/048--117/038--104/031- The above is in Mbits per sec, so 10m(30') I'm getting 48-56mbps (5-6MBytes/s) and 20m 31Mbps (3MBytes/sec) As you can see the Broadcom does really well at distance. 15m (45') was through 1 wall but really through 3 as the shape of the house. 20m (60') was through 2 walls but in straight line. I'm using the latest Top Dog chipset router. I don't think you can blame the 1505 in this case the router is more likely not ideal for that distance. You need draftn it's build for speed and distance by using MIMO technology, the i3945 will probably be the most steady in non draftn or SuperG All this draftn is not finalised yet so it may pay to wait till the final 11n is finished. I've had 2 parity errors with the SparkLan. I've put this is to see if there is a difference to the Gigabyte. One happened when I turned the WIFI off with the FN key combo. Can't quite remember the other one, think it was while doing a lower speed test. These were 2 errors (2 too many really) over many hours of testing. Didn't have any errors with the Gigabyte The SparkLan was really a pain in the backside to get results from. It would stop and start through tests, when it did go it was as fast as the Gigabyte. I'll add some more to the review I've posted on the results I got with the Sparklan. But I cannot recommend this card at all on my system. you may have to play with the routers DMZ and possiby QoS to help with the error. I doubt it's the tweaked INF might be the driver to some extent Yes taking this card on the road will not be ideal it will work and work reasonably well. But I wouldn't want to rely on it for maximum speeds with non Atheros routers. I'll write all this up, now that I've also had a play with the Sparklan version. [UPDATE] I've added my Sparlan experiences to the review, back to Gigabyte for me (with no errors but slow downloads)

I have to say overall that I am very happy with the driver tweak that you did.
The older WI01GT is finally usable and does quite well.
Still not sure why I am getting that weird error (could be due to ATItool which I use for GPU overclocking).

So, I think I will keep this card in and do some more testing until the 1505 arrives.

D.

I'm talking Mbytes. I will give it another try with my friends Netgear WNR854T Router. Hopefully that will work better. How come the 1505 wont work in 108 mbit mode with my 108 mbit rangemax router? Is it not supported?

Good to hear, try latest version.
This should be final one
I've found the bug that caused the slow surfing and fixed the INF accordingly
Now super fast transfers and good surfing again
I'll keep the card for now, as I'll need to save for the DIR-855 when it comes out.

Latest thoughts are over here

You are getting to the end of the range with your gear.
At this range speeds can vary greatly, the Broadcom might not do as well here.
The Broadcom's only have 2x2 aerials where as the Atheros 5008X have 3x3 which means better coverage.
When I add in my aerial tweaks to the Atheros INF it makes a huge difference to speed.

Have a play with different routers if you can to see if results vary
Not sure why you can't get 108Mbps

There are no issues with connection the Atheros cards connect, but they loose so much speed with non Atheros based routers.
LAN parties could be an issue or if you needed to file share at work or home etc

I'm making slow progress with the Sparklan.
It connects but stops and starts with transfers (surfs OK as I'm doing now)

Ok, I was using v1.12 for almost 24 hours with no issues (except that random mapfile1 access error)
Just updated to 1.13 and will see how it goes.

I will try some large file transfers to see if the card will crap out or not.

D.

edit:
OK, it crapped out on me.
I tried transferring 6GB of files to my NAS.
I didn't receive an error but the network connection was lost and now I cant even get the wireless card to work
I reinstalled 5 times, but every time I reboot and start it up, it wont see any networks and does not connect to anything.

Real bummer

Ok, I am stumped. On Friday night I installed the new card and booted up (without the Gigabyte cd in the drive) and Vista started up and immediately loaded drivers for the card. If I do an "Update Driver" from Device Manager it gives the same message. I have 300mbps to my Trendnet 802.11n router (according to Vista). The new aerial was only about 4" long and it fit right into the bay where the card goes (although I am planning on routing it through the hinge once I have enough free time to take the hinge off). How can I force your drivers in? I haven't seen the NMI error with this driver set but I haven't used the laptop much since I installed the card.

When you update the driver, choose "Browse for driver software on your computer", then choose "Let me pick from a list..." and then choose "Have disk" and point to the folder that contains the updated drivers.

I found you have to reboot for the driver properties pages to be updated (ie., all the configurable options to show up).

Give it a try.

That worked. It now shows Atheros AR5008X Wireless Network Adapter instead of Gigabyte. Which inf file should I have used, the netathr.inf or netathrx.inf? Is there anyway to get the Gigabyte utility to work in Vista? It says it is installed but there isn't an entry in Programs and all I get is the Vista wireless network control panel.

Good to hear you don't have the parity bug although have you tried a file transfer yet ?

The Gigabyte utility only works in XP
SPaeklan just released the driver for the 124N, this has Atheros Utility (well sort of)
The driver with ACU is here

Copy the WMON dir to Drive C: (or your vista boot drive)
Open the dir in the boot drive run the BATCH file as Administrator (right click) it will install it's self
Then you can put the app on the desktop (no need to run the batch file again)

Best we can do with CU's for Vista for now.

Sparklan card is just not cooperatng in file transfers, surfs just fine but keeps disconnecting and stopping starting and is just plain slow in file transfers.
Not sure what will fix this.

I have transferred a 340MB file without an NMI.

Is that with modded driver or original ?
Modded one will stop the Parity errors on both the Gigabyte and Sparklan.
Could really do with a transfer test with original driver to see if the parity occurs as I know they don't with modded one.
Did you get a decent speed with transfer?
You should be getting around 10MBps if the Gigabyte stays in 11n mode with router.

Atheros are going to have more fun with Vista SP1.
The Gigabyte installer detects my Vista x64 Sp1 as Vista x86 and installs stuff but of course can't install the 32bit driver.

The 2 INFs in the drivers are one for x86 and the other for x64.
The driver updater will automatcallly pick the right one.

Now this cursed Sparklan card, I may have to give up on this for now.
I'm stumped on why it's crippled when it comes to transfers.
It does it in both Vista x86 and x64 and with SP1.

Also a poll, what do you guys prefer with the LED ?

v1.13 has slow flash when not connected, solid LED when connected.
or
v1.14 has solid LED when not cnnected and slow flash when connected but idle and flashes faster as the data increases.

v1.14 is not released yet, couple of minor changes.
But can do it quicker if demand for the LED tweak is there.
That is as long as it also works with the Gigabyte as I've done it with the Sparklan.

That was with your modded Atheros driver. I hadn't tried a file transfer with the default gigabyte driver.

I personally find flashing lights distracting and would rather just have a solid LED showing connection.

Any chance of installing the orignal Gigabyte or even the newer sparklan driver (both are WHQL)
This will not have the Parity error fix, and would be good to see if all i9400/e1705's are affected.

As for flashing LED, I didn't like it flashing at first either, but now is rather handy, mainly because of all my testing and to see what is happening.

I may be able to go back to the older driver. Is there an easy way to tell it to ignore the hacked Atheros driver and to use the Gigabyte driver? I can understand why the flashing led would be useful in your testing but to me it would be distracting. Im just giving feedback