AWUS036H shows no interfaces

[span01]

I've been through at least a dozen threads, exhaustive google searches and read about people having problems with the AWUS036H which is supposed to work out of the box. Unfortunately, none of them seem to have my exact issue and although I've tried many of the solutions given, I have not been able to get my card to work.

The card is listed among the usb devices but it shows no interfaces.

I'm running BT R3 in a VBox machine on my MBA. I've made sure that the guest machine has the usb connection to the card and confirmed it using "lsusb".

root@bt:~# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:8187 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187 Wireless Adapter
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Great, it's connected. It should show up as an interface:

root@bt:~# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

root@bt:~#

root@bt:~# ifconfig -a
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:c5:8d:1f  
          inet addr:10.0.2.15  Bcast:10.0.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fec5:8d1f/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:403916 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:203764 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:334497225 (334.4 MB)  TX bytes:11017042 (11.0 MB)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:313 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:313 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:93885 (93.8 KB)  TX bytes:93885 (93.8 KB)

root@bt:~#

No interface. I've also tried following this guide: http://pastebin.com/B41m9qP0

The guide includes running these commands:

root@bt:~# rmmod rtl8187
root@bt:~# rfkill block all
root@bt:~# rfkill unblock all
root@bt:~# modprobe rtl8187
root@bt:~# rfkill unblock all

After running these commands I can check dmesg which looks like this:

root@bt:~# dmesg | grep rtl8187
[ 1073.363551] usbcore: registered new interface driver rtl8187
[ 2006.144169] usbcore: deregistering interface driver rtl8187
[ 2851.782710] usbcore: registered new interface driver rtl8187
[ 2874.541030] usbcore: deregistering interface driver rtl8187
[ 2874.547993] usbcore: registered new interface driver rtl8187

And in lsmod I get this:

root@bt:~# lsmod | grep rtl8187
rtl8187                56060  0 
mac80211              410313  1 rtl8187
cfg80211              160399  2 rtl8187,mac80211
eeprom_93cx6           12560  1 rtl8187

Nothing has worked this far in making the card visible as an interface. I'm stunned and out of options. I've reinstalled the BT installation twice and rebooted so many times I've lost count. If anyone has an idea, I would be very thankful

[maverik35]

When starting VM with USB alfa connected, once completely booted, disconnected Alfa (unplug the usb cable) and reconnect it. See if it works.

Now, I've read some posts where states that some devices have issues with USB 3.0 standar. I don't know if this is your case...

And yes, alfa 36H works out of the box, want to see it?..Boot using BT5r3 live DVD.

Are your USB ports enabled in VM? I have never and will never use VMWare, I use VM from Oracle and it requires guest-additions package to use USB ports. Again, Ignore the VMWare function.

Try what I wrote in the beginning, reconnect it once fully booted.

I see everything ok excluding the ifconfig and iwconfig showing no Alfa device at wlan0.

[span01]

When starting VM with USB alfa connected, once completely booted, disconnected Alfa (unplug the usb cable) and reconnect it. See if it works.

Now, I've read some posts where states that some devices have issues with USB 3.0 standar. I don't know if this is your case...

And yes, alfa 36H works out of the box, want to see it?..Boot using BT5r3 live DVD.

Are your USB ports enabled in VM? I have never and will never use VMWare, I use VM from Oracle and it requires guest-additions package to use USB ports. Again, Ignore the VMWare function.

Try what I wrote in the beginning, reconnect it once fully booted.

I see everything ok excluding the ifconfig and iwconfig showing no Alfa device at wlan0.

Thank you for your reply.

I have no doubt most people have no issues what so ever and that the modem usually works out of the box. I will try to make a bootable USB to boot into my main station though, to test if that works better.

I've tried rebooting and reconnecting many times already and I'm afraid it hasn't helped. I'm no master on VM's and how they work but I assume that if the device is being listed when I do "lsusb", it should be properly connected?

[span01]

When starting VM with USB alfa connected, once completely booted, disconnected Alfa (unplug the usb cable) and reconnect it. See if it works.

Now, I've read some posts where states that some devices have issues with USB 3.0 standar. I don't know if this is your case...

And yes, alfa 36H works out of the box, want to see it?..Boot using BT5r3 live DVD.

Are your USB ports enabled in VM? I have never and will never use VMWare, I use VM from Oracle and it requires guest-additions package to use USB ports. Again, Ignore the VMWare function.

Try what I wrote in the beginning, reconnect it once fully booted.

I see everything ok excluding the ifconfig and iwconfig showing no Alfa device at wlan0.

The problem does indeed seem to be with the USB-ports. I moved my virtual disk to my older macbook from 2009 and it worked flawlessly. If someone has an idea on how to get the awus036h to play nicely with USB3 using either VirtualBox, Parallells or any other virtualisation environment I'll be glad to head.

[fl3xu5]

May be you're able to use the other usb port.

Make sure the VBox machine is able to read the usb port when you plug the alfa usb ( usually there is a notification in the VMware Fusion when we'd like to connect the usb stick )

Hopefully this will be useful for you.