Problem with alfa awus036h

[manacerace]

Hi everybody,

I have installed backtrack 5 and I have bought the awus036h alfa usb card.
I started the driver with the command:
modprobe -r rtl8187 && modprobe r8187
but when I launch iwconfig it doesn't mention the power management, neither the usb device appears to be recognised (there are no devices listed). Plus, if I launch airmon-ng, I can't see the phy0 or phy1 text near the driver column.
What can I do?

[scottm99]

I have that same alfa card, and have not needed to use the modprobe commands. The AWUS036H should work with your install of BT5 right out of the box--no kernel mods required.

[Snayler]

I started the driver with the command:
modprobe -r rtl8187 && modprobe r8187
but when I launch iwconfig it doesn't mention the power management, neither the usb device appears to be recognised (there are no devices listed). Plus, if I launch airmon-ng, I can't see the phy0 or phy1 text near the driver column.
What can I do?

r8187 seems to have been removed from BT. I tried to install it a while back (so that I could activate the highpower funcionality), but I was unsuccessful and I didn't had the patience to search for a workaround. Either way, rtl8187 works great and you can set the txpower to higher values by typing "iwconfig wlan0 txpower #" on a terminal, where "#" can assume values from 0 to 20.

[Scamentology]

I am having no issues with monitor mode on this card but I do not use it for connecting to networks as it seems to have connectivity issues.

I am also able to set it as high as 30 - again this makes its stability suffer even more.

But nothing has done more damage to my Alfa than dropping it in a glass of water. Now it only works on channel 1 4 6 and 11. Time for an upgrade anyway.

This thing took a beating over the years.

[Pinns]

I am having no issues with monitor mode on this card but I do not use it for connecting to networks as it seems to have connectivity issues.

I am also able to set it as high as 30 - again this makes its stability suffer even more.

But nothing has done more damage to my Alfa than dropping it in a glass of water. Now it only works on channel 1 4 6 and 11. Time for an upgrade anyway.

This thing took a beating over the years.

Just curious, what will you be upgrading too? I was going to get the Alpha, but if I can spend a bit more and get better, I will.

[Snayler]

I am having no issues with monitor mode on this card but I do not use it for connecting to networks as it seems to have connectivity issues.

Me too, the driver is very unstable for networking. I always use the internal card of my laptops for networking since it's more reliable.

I am also able to set it as high as 30 - again this makes its stability suffer even more.

I only managed to hit 30dbm with r8187 driver. With rtl8187, if I try to input a value higher than 20 it throws an error.

Just curious, what will you be upgrading too? I was going to get the Alpha, but if I can spend a bit more and get better, I will.

The majority of the members of this forum seems to speak very good of Alfa adapters. AWUS036H, the one I have, works really well and out-of-the-box. But there are better and expensive ones, supporting 802.11n networks. Just be sure to check monitor mode and injection capability before buying.

[Scamentology]

I only managed to hit 30dbm with r8187 driver. With rtl8187, if I try to input a value higher than 20 it throws an error.

It threw me errors for the longest time too. Try this.

Interface       Chipset         Driver

wlan0           Atheros AR9285  ath9k - [phy0]
wlan1           Realtek RTL8187L        rtl8187 - [phy1]

root@bt:~# iwconfig wlan1
wlan1     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=30 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off

Try this bash script I wrote. This card gives so many people different results. for months I couldn't do this then it just started working.

#!/bin/bash
set -x
#  (C)opyright 2010 Scamentology
# This Script changes the TX Power for the Alfa Wireless card

    txpower_up="yes"                             # Raises TX Power for alfa Adapters
 txpower_value="30"                              # Value to raise alfa adapter to
     interface="$(airmon-ng | grep "RTL8187" | awk '{print $1}')"  # "eth0" "wlan0" "wlan1"

#__ Nothing To Change Below This Line _____________________________________________________________

#__ TX Power Increase for Alfa ____________________________________________________________________
if [ ! $interface ] ; then echo "Alfa Card Not Found" ; /usr/bin/notify-send "Alfa Card Not Found" ; exit 1 ; fi
sleep 3
if [ $txpower_up == "yes" ] ; then
   alfa="$(airmon-ng | grep "RTL8187" | awk '{print $1}')"
   if [ "$alfa" == "$interface" ] ; then
      echo "Setting TxPower on $interface to $txpower_value"
      # /usr/bin/notify-send "Setting TxPower on $interface to $txpower_value"
      ifconfig $interface down
      iw reg set BO
      iwconfig $interface TxPower $txpower_value
      ifconfig $interface up
      tx_status="$(iwconfig $interface | grep Tx-Power | awk '{ print $5 }')"
      if [ "$tx_status" == "Tx-Power=$txpower_value" ] ; then
         echo "$tx_status"
         # /usr/bin/notify-send "$tx_status"
         exit 0
      else
         echo "Something went wrong"
         # /usr/bin/notify-send "Something went wrong"
         exit 1
      fi
   else
      echo "Alfa Wireless Card Not Connected to System"
      # /usr/bin/notify-send "Alfa Wireless Card Not Connected to System"
      exit 1
   fi
fi

[Snayler]

iw reg set BO

Yes, this did the trick. I've seen it and used it a long time ago, but I forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me!