Fix for the Alfa AWUS036H in Backtrack 5

[will91w]

Having installed backtrack a year or so ago, i always had an issue with my external wireless adapter

Alfa AWUS036H

The problem was that after i had successfully connected to my network, after a minute or so the connection would just completely drop.. but it would still tell me that i was connected to the network.

I have now found a 'Permanent' fix for this issue:

Firstly, make sure your Alfa AWUS036H is connected to your pc/laptop.

Now open a new terminal and type the following:

ifconfig wlan1 down

or wlan0, whichever your card is on. use "ifconfig -a" to find out

Then type:

iw reg set BO

This sets the country code to boliva so you can use the alfa card in max power.

Then type:

iwconfig wlan1 txpower 30

This sets your card to 30db which is the max power the card uses

Then type:

iwconfig wlan1 rate 1M

This should fix the connection drop or very slow internet problem [main issue for me]

Now you are almost done, just type the following:

ifconfig wlan1 up

Now just open your network manager and connect to your network and the problem should be fixed.

[danthemechanicman]

This is awesome. I always wondered why mine kept cutting out so hopefully this will fix it. I wasn't even searching for this so thank you for posting it

[n3lson]

Just using iwconfig to set your rate, it will revert after rebooting.
You can add the line to your /etc/rc.local to make it run every reboot though.
I prefer to use something like:

iwconfig wlan1 rate 18M AUTO

which is "normal auto-rate up to 18M"

There are a few other things that can help with unstable/low quality connections...
namely setting RTS & fragmentation threshold (default 2300ish) to 512 or lower to force smaller packet sizes (down to as low as 256). With this you could get stable at much higher data rates than before.

Overall, I start with this to my /etc/rc.local & tweak occasionally til it's rock stable.

iwconfig wlan1 rate 36M auto
iwconfig wlan1 frag 512
iwconfig wlan1 rts 512

[mediaklan]

Overall, I start with this to my /etc/rc.local & tweak occasionally til it's rock stable.

iwconfig wlan1 rate 36M auto
iwconfig wlan1 frag 512
iwconfig wlan1 rts 512

Thank you for this trick ! It works amazingly well. But how do you know when that's becoming "rock stable" ?
What do you look after ?
I tried your setup, and it works very well, but I wish to know what should i look, to know if your setup is the best for my card ... ?

[shappappo]

I have the same problem with the alfa. I bought it because the vendor told me it was the best and working out of the box in linux

Now I can't really make it work (since months) under Ubu, Mint and Fedora. Also in Puppy, that usually "just works". Same, well known problem.

I tried everything I found (and I found a lot), and just TODAY what seems to work is to disable wifi (any way), than

sudo modprobe rtl8187

to check driver it's up and running, than

sudo iwconfig wlan1 rate auto

The result is been working for three hours, but it's very slow, and I don't know what will happen after the next reboot.

What SEEMS to me is that this antenna made quite a name some kernel version ago, than....something happened.
I have already mapped half the town I live in, so I just need decent and reliable browse and download.
Does anybody know which was THE LAST WORKING KERNEL with this damn antenna?
I'll be MORE THAN HAPPY to downgrade.

Thank you very much