VIVA! Atheros WIFI. DOWN The With Intel 2915 Hunk of Junk - Page 15

http://www.demarctech.com/products/r...-pci-card.html

Get a high-powered Atheros based mini-PCI.

Atheros w/Linux Drivers

Hey Proud9300_OZie.. Yeah I just saw the new auctions.. Thanks.

BTW Has anyone used the new Atheros w/Linux Drivers? Since I dual boot WinXP and Debian Linux I'm now wondering if I should get this one instead of the AR5006X. Just when I was about to purchase I found this one!

I sent oxford.bay an email asking what the difference was and got a responce back within minutes.
From the auction I noticed the Linux card has the 2 AR2112 and AR5213 chipsets on it. I may opt for this card now since I don't care if it needs a bit more power. At least I'd be able to have wireless access from Linux! The only time I'm on battery is when traveling to/from an airport mostly and I disable the wireless at those times anyways.

Links?

The AR5006X
and
The Atheros w/Linux Drivers

How come this is the case? 100mW isn't much of a power drain, I'd be surprised if the motherboard was limiting it. Where did you get this information?

Tried installing the older Gigabyte drivers that came with the card,
ver 3.1.2.21 from 23. Jul 2004, and now transmit power is at 79mW, even though it is not even listed as a available power level! So transmit power might be a driver only limit, maybe other drivers allow 100mW

But the XR checkbox doesn't appear in the config utility :/

I'd assumed that the 63mW was because of EU limits on transmit power, so does anyone know how to override that?

Add me to the list of extremely happy gigabyte WIAG02 owners!! Bye bye 2915 (mine had good connection strength but when I upgraded my DSL to 3MBS and the card was never able to go above the 1MBS I used to have I figured something was up... now with the gigabyte card... 2.9MBS!)

My 2200 gets good signal strength, but what I want is my connection to go from 54mbs to 108mbs (and physically show it in the toolbar), can that happen? Is the 54mbs to 108mbs only related to the bandwith?

I also feel like this thread needs a consolidation and list all the great atheros pci cards, with info and links to sites that sell these (Current)!

I can set my transmit level to 100mW, but I haven't seen an actual "Transmitting Level" indicator in mW.

besides physically pulling out the card and replacing, what's the more proper way to fully uninstall my 2915 and fully install the 5006? thanks..

i only skimmed through the 20 pages so I didn't see this

Uninstall the ProSet software first (if you even use it), then you can go into Device Manager and physically uninstall the device to remove any trace of the 2915. Power down.

Remove the battery before unscrewing the plate to access the mini-PCI slot. This prevents a residual charge from remaining or discharging whilst you're screwing around inside.

Touch something grounded. A plugged-in metal lamp would be a good example. Just a stray piece of metal won't absorb the charge. You could also get a cordless antistatic strap, but I didn't use one.

Getting the card out is much like getting RAM out, you just slide the clips off, pull back slightly to get the card out of the slot, and bring it up to a 30 degree angle and pull it out (it's not QUITE as easy as RAM, which just pops right up). Disconnect the leads first, taking note which goes where first. White in front, black in back. Sounds kinda racist, but it's the order, and if you've got a problem with it you can turn the notebook around to face the other direction.

The real pain in the ass is once you get the new card seated (it rests on TOP of the metal guides, not beneath) is getting the leads to stay put as they've got a bit too much slack to them and the position they're in makes them like to pop off. Bend them around a bit to reduce their propensity to go taught. If you WANTED to you could probably get some electrical tape to hold them on, but be forewarned the heat inside the case might cause it to loosen over time. I wouldn't take the risk of wrapping a "belt" of tape around for insurance, as you'd run the risk of putting so much on it'll prevent the card from seating properly.

Once it's in, load up, ignore the "Found New Hardware," press Cancel whenever asked to load drivers, and load the drivers located here, not the non-WHQLs on the disc. The Wizard likes to pop up about 40% through the Driver/Utility install. Just press Cancel again.

Should be painless at that point. And if your network isn't using QoS or SuperG+, disable them in the utility to make the connection more solid.

Just be thankful you're not installing it into a 6000D - the mini-PCI slot is under the keyboard. Not DIFFICULT, but definitely not as painless as installing it into a 9300/XPS2.

Thanks destruya, real good help. I just need the drivers for it now.

Cool, here's the link for the AR5006 card!

http://www.gigabyte-usa.com/communic..._gn-wi01ht.htm


Can someone link me to the 5006 drivers? I'm only seeing the 5005's here.

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Download/Dow...ileExtName=zip

found the drivers for AR5006X

I noticed that there were questions about differences between AR5006X and 5005GS chipstes.

Firstable, you should know that Atheros makes a couple of chipsets for each released series and all of these chipsets differ in features, e.g. for 5006 series there are following chipsets available: AR5006EX, AR5006EG, AR5006X, AR5006XS, AR5006AP-GS and AR5006AP-G.

So, saying that "the newer is not necessarily better" is really stupid, when comparing AR5006X and AR5005GS chipsets only! These two are not supposed to be compared, because they don't match each other in both 5006 and 5005 series! This comparison should rather be between AR5006XS and AR5005GS chipsets - these actually are the equivalents.

Furthermore, you will find that AR5006XS chipset on Gigabyte GN-WI01HT card, not the cheaper (and weaker feature-wise) AR5006X that some people think. So what's the point asking for comparison with 5006X?

To make things clear, the only difference between GN-WIAG02 (based on AR5005GS) and GN-WI01HT (based on AR5006XS) Gigabyte's minipci cards are, according to specifications provided on Atheros webpage, 802.11a mode support and adequate SUPER-AG mode (which is actually a SUPER-G for 802.11a mode).

So everyone who is _not_ interested in 802.11a should go for GN-WIAG02 or other minipci cards based on AR5005GS, the rest should go for GN-WI01HT, or other that's based on AR5006XS. Notice, that both the chipsets are built on one chip only, and the power usage should be similar.

Regarding linux, the native drivers for all the Atheros chipsets are provided by madwifi project, http://www.madwifi.org. There's nothing more to it, these drivers are constantly beeing developed with Atheros company's help.

Regarding the transmit power level that's been so controversial:
Someone has quoted: "Transmit Power Level: Selects the transmit power level for 80211b/g or 802.11a in mW. Actual transmit power may be limited by regulatory domain or hardware limitations."
This, what has been suggested, probably doesn't really mean laptop's motherboard limitations, but rather limitation of the Gigabyte's minipci card design itself. Gigabyte has probably decided to limit transmit power level because of regulations that are limiting the producer on the target market (i.e. EU). Obviously, in some cases motherboard can also be a limitation, but it's simple that it is not the factor in this case, because it is entirely not possible that all the machines you people have are limitting to the same power level, that is relatively low 63mW exactly for each of you! If that was motherboard case, limitation level would most likely differ in variuos notebook's motherboard designs.

EDIT1. After searching the web I found, that Mini PCI specification limits power usage of a card to 2W, which is far enough to let the wifi card transmit 100mW signal.

Does anyone have any more links for the gigabyte cards? The previous ones have all ended ib eBay. Any links would be greatly appreciated.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...PcY_BIN_Stores

Thats the link from the first page of this thread! It still works!

Ya I know it works lol. Sorry if I didnt word it very well. I thought someone would get confused but was too lazy to correct it. Anyways, what I meant was that the auction had already ended. I found some more from one of the guys in England that was mentioned here but does anyone else have anymore links?

Just using the newest 2915 drivers and the regular Windows software to connect to the router and no problems.