Dealextreme alfa copy issue

[5cardcharlie]

I have dealextreme sku 35688 (the one with the dragon logo), supposedly a 1000mw RTL8187L. It's working, and is indeed RTL8187L chipset, but I seem to have a different version than others who have posted here:

http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forum...ternative.html

http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forum...alfa-copy.html

Mine is a green board, not blue, and has "WN517GP" printed on it. Upon searching I found that the manufacturer claims 500mw, not 1000mw. Using the r8187 driver, injection fails at everything above 250mw (24 dBm). I use the following commands to set it up (of course having tried higher txpower as mentioned):

dload-r8187
iwpriv wlan0 highpower 1
iwconfig wlan0 txpower 24

Am I missing something, or has dealextreme pulled a bait and switch? I'm otherwise happy with the card but this issue bugs me.

EDIT:
For anyone else with this issue, I managed to fix the problem by starting networking after loading the r8187 driver, and full "txpower 30" works for injection. Not sure why this is necessary since monitor mode and injection work fine without doing so at "txpower 24".

This is the script I use that works; the ifconfig and macchanger lines are of course optional:

dload-r8187
ifconfig wlan0 down
macchanger -A wlan0
iwpriv wlan0 highpower 1
iwconfig wlan0 txpower 30
start-network

[Snayler]

Upon searching I found that the manufacturer claims 500mw, not 1000mw.

That will depend on the antenna, not on the device. The better the antenna, the most mW your adapter will emit. I've read about this in some thread here on the forums (although I can't find it), as well as on the IRC channel (Thorn said it, IIRC). Google may have some more info about this.

Am I missing something, or has dealextreme pulled a bait and switch? I'm otherwise happy with the card but this issue bugs me.

I don't think these forums are the ideal place to ask this kind of questions.

[r4d1x]

I don't think these forums are the ideal place to ask this kind of questions.

Seems relevant to me. If hes having issues with it that cannot be resolved, I would think the rest of the community should know to steer clear of it.

[5cardcharlie]

I didn't mean that to come across the way it was perceived. I'm just wondering what's going on and thinking maybe someone else will benefit from knowing that dealextreme changed the board.

Thanks for the antenna information; I will investigate that.

[Citruspers]

Thank you for the information. I'm sorry this happened to you, I'll update my topic you linked to with the information!
I sadly had to sell my adapter, so it's time to try out a new one. That 2000mW one with 2 antennas looks like fun so I guess I'll have to test that.