Alfa AWUS036H is acting strange
Okay, recently I've had a rather bizarre experience with one of my wireless cards. The Alfa 500mW AWUS036H that I've been using for a while started to emit these strange sounds that sound like squeaking. It only emits them when transmitting packets and I've never heard it emit these frequencies before. It goes like bzzt bzzzt bzzt bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt bzzt bzzt bzzt bzzt bzzt bzzzt bzzzzzzzt bzzzt... and you can almost hear as each and every packet is being transmitted into the air. It's definitely not broken because it can still receive/transmit without any problems in monitor and managed mode. I'm just curious whether this behavior is normal.
Has anybody else witnessed such behavior?
Mine does this as well, but only when injecting at a high rate(300+ pps). I'm not sure whether this is a defect or what. It did not make these sounds when I first started using it, but as you said I have not noticed the usability to be impaired at all.
When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean. -- Lin-Chi
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I slept once, it was a Tuesday.
Strange. At first I thought it was the driver's fault in BT3f, but it does this in other distros too (older drivers). I normally set the tx rate to 1M when using injection in monitor mode and you can hear each outgoing packet in aireplay-ng --test wlan1. Goes like beep beep beep beep beep... when an AP isn't responding.
I got a little paranoid reading this thread and had to press my ear up against my precious Alfa while injecting. Mine is still completely silent regardless if I inject at 500 pps or use it for anything else, even using the highTX setting.
-Monkeys are like nature's humans.
Only problem is, you've now got a glow-in-the-dark headOriginally Posted by =Tron=
Maybe I can turn it into my favour and use it as a pickup line with the gals: need a nightlight?Only problem is, you've now got a glow-in-the-dark head
-Monkeys are like nature's humans.
Changing the USB port has no effect and "iwconfig wlan1 txpower (number)" seems to be controlling its volume. I hope it doesn't die as a result
If it just started you should be alright, at least for a while. Mine has been making this sound for about 4 months and still works Great.Changing the USB port has no effect and "iwconfig wlan1 txpower (number)" seems to be controlling its volume. I hope it doesn't die as a result
When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean. -- Lin-Chi
- - - - - - - -
I slept once, it was a Tuesday.
I think this is caused by the lil solenoid inside the alfa (6r8) its basically a small coil of wire wound around a core and like alot of solenoids they hum, buzz whistle ect when current is passed through them. Loud speakers work in much the same way when different frequency's of current pass through you get a different sound.
Mines always done this and to me its reassuring that it's working
Don't discount Windows, I would be a poor man without it ;)
Reading through these final posts has earned me some relief. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with a whistling Alfa. Still, I am curious to why this happens to only some Alfas while others don't seem to hear a thing.
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