My wireless adapter cannot get a strong signal in backtrack

[FPVPilot]

When I use my wireless card (D-Link DWA-125) with windows, the card gets a very strong signal from my router and many other signals from other routers around my neighborhood. Now on Backtrack 4, I am trying to gather packets with my adapter and here are the steps that I am taking:

(1) check to see that backtrack recognizes my wireless adapter. . . good
(2) enable monitor mode on adapter. . . goood (interface: ra0)
(3) start mointoring (airodump-ng ra0). . . good

But now my wireless adapter gets only a very weak signal from my router (1 or 2 packets in a minute) and no signal from any other router. Am I doing something wrong? Is there any way to get a stronger signal? I don't understand this problem. I thought that signal strength was purely hardware related.

[skor78]

My guess is windows over-estimates your signal power.. Do a search on boost/manage wifi power, there are a few threads discussing this.

Cheers.

[sLiPpErY]

I've always had this problem... not sure why... I just ignore it, it hasn't slowed anything down compared to windows...

[FPVPilot]

in iwconfig man, i can adjust the tx power, but this doesn't help anything when I am passively gathering packets.

Also, ignoring the problem won't help either because I'm trying to capture packets and the wireless card isn't even finding them.

Any other ideas?

bump

Doesn't anyone else have this problem?

[skor78]

If you want to capture packets (and i'm assuming not only from your router..), buy an external USB card. I'm using a RTL8187 (ALFA), and it works great. Regardless of packet capturing, you'll never be able to inject packages with a good ratio using a internal card, unless your within a few meters from the router. With my USB card in my living room i'm able to "probe" well over 20 routers, and if i put my card on the window, although i didn't count exactly how many i've done, i'm sure i can cover over 60.
To me, it was the best investment i've made.

In alternative, you can google how to install an external antenna on your notebook, but this requires for you to cut the casing and although it works great with a internal rtl8187, if u can't even capture packets from your own router, probably this is a bad idea for u..

Cheers!

[FPVPilot]

If you want to capture packets (and i'm assuming not only from your router..), buy an external USB card. I'm using a RTL8187 (ALFA), and it works great. Regardless of packet capturing, you'll never be able to inject packages with a good ratio using a internal card, unless your within a few meters from the router. With my USB card in my living room i'm able to "probe" well over 20 routers, and if i put my card on the window, although i didn't count exactly how many i've done, i'm sure i can cover over 60.
To me, it was the best investment i've made.

In alternative, you can google how to install an external antenna on your notebook, but this requires for you to cut the casing and although it works great with a internal rtl8187, if u can't even capture packets from your own router, probably this is a bad idea for u..

Cheers!

Yes, this is what I have done. The wireless card that I am using is the D-Link DWA-125 which is an external USB card.

[skor78]

D-Link DWA-125 is a USB card, RTL8187 is a PROPER USB CARD - RTL8187

[Sublime865]

Yeah I'm personally not a big fan of dlink, but I think internal cards are better, especially my 600mW EnGenius :P

Actually I have a couple laptops with 400mW EnGenius cards in them too.

But I digress, the question I have is, are there any other devices connected to your router, its hard to capture traffic on an empty road. I have other laptops that I'll set up and connect to my network while I am tinkering, I don't know if you have the same opportunity.

Simple way to do it with one computer:

You need:
VMware (Player will work, its free)
Backtrack VM image
internal wireless card
external wireless card

Boot into Windows and connect to the network normally
Start your VM of Backtrack
Plug in your wireless card (external), and attach it virtually to the VM
Use backtrack to sniff the packets from the wireless card used by Windows

[FPVPilot]

D-Link DWA-125 is a USB card, RTL8187 is a PROPER USB CARD - RTL8187

Wow, I now understand why your card works so much better. That is one heck of an antenna!

Yeah I'm personally not a big fan of dlink, but I think internal cards are better, especially my 600mW EnGenius :P

Actually I have a couple laptops with 400mW EnGenius cards in them too.

But I digress, the question I have is, are there any other devices connected to your router, its hard to capture traffic on an empty road. I have other laptops that I'll set up and connect to my network while I am tinkering, I don't know if you have the same opportunity.

Simple way to do it with one computer:

You need:
VMware (Player will work, its free)
Backtrack VM image
internal wireless card
external wireless card

Boot into Windows and connect to the network normally
Start your VM of Backtrack
Plug in your wireless card (external), and attach it virtually to the VM
Use backtrack to sniff the packets from the wireless card used by Windows

Wow, I feel dumb now. That would definitely be the problem. I am the only laptop on my home network; everything else is hardwired. I guess that I'll have to fire up my dad's laptop sometime and then I bet that I'll have better results.

Okay, I tried this again today while my father's laptop was connect to the wireless network but did not have success. It still won't find my router.

There is one thing that I have noticed which seems strange. On most examples I have seen, when the wireless card is set to monitor mode, the computer also creates a new virtual device called mon0.

(monitor mode enabled on mon0)

However, the new virtual device is never created when I enable monitor mode. I only ge the message:

(monitor mode enabled)

I read another thread where someone had this problem because the computer was using the wrong driver for the chipset in his card. Any thoughts on this?

[nam5301]

Yeah I'm personally not a big fan of dlink, but I think internal cards are better, especially my 600mW EnGenius :P

Actually I have a couple laptops with 400mW EnGenius cards in them too.

But I digress, the question I have is, are there any other devices connected to your router, its hard to capture traffic on an empty road. I have other laptops that I'll set up and connect to my network while I am tinkering, I don't know if you have the same opportunity.

Simple way to do it with one computer:

You need:
VMware (Player will work, its free)
Backtrack VM image
internal wireless card
external wireless card

Boot into Windows and connect to the network normally
Start your VM of Backtrack
Plug in your wireless card (external), and attach it virtually to the VM
Use backtrack to sniff the packets from the wireless card used by Windows

How do you use backtrack to sniff packets from the wireless card used by windows? What I mean is literally how do you do it? Do you bridge the connection, ?? I have RTL8187 usb wireless and it doesn't seem to find all the available WiFi's in my neighborhood. The windows Network seems to have a stronger signal. How can I make mind stronger so I can pick up more WiFi signals?