• Registered: 2009-08-22
  • Posts: 122

Topic: USB Wireless adapter problem

I'm away on a family visit.  The built in wifi antenna on my laptop apparently doesn't pull in the wifi signal i need to access.  It sees other wifi signals, but it seems I need more strength to pull in weaker signals.  (It's all legit and permission is there to use the intended wifi signal target.)  I installed a Rosewell RNX-G1 wifi dongle that I had kicking around.  It has an external antenna and pulls in weaker signals.

The laptop I'm using with Statler recognizes the wireless adapter which uses Realtek RTL8187.  In Network Manager, I see the available networks for the regular system wifi and for the RTL8187 - each with a separate list, the Realtek pulling in more signals as expected (including my target signal).  The problem is that using the wifi adapter to connect to the weaker signal I want to use, I receive a notification popup that I'm conncected to the intended wifi network (no password needed) and I can see the bars in the network manager system tray icon, but I cannot load any pages.  All pages just time out.  Using terminal I can clearly see that the computer recognizes the wifi adapter.   Also, as I said I can see available networks, so I know the adapter is working with Statler.  What am I missing to actually get online and load pages?  Hopefully something simple.

Since I don't have any options, I have been forced to use a previously unused Vista installation to connect.  With Windows, the situation is largely the same after loading the driver from the Rosewell driver CD.  Both the built in wifi and the usb adapter detect available networks, again the usb adapter bringing in weaker signals.  The BIG DIFFERENCE is that I can connect and load any pages on the weaker wifi signal detected by the Rosewell adapter, no problem.  So I know the adapter is functional.

Please excuse any delay in responding.  Thanks.

Last edited by sagesparrow (2010-11-15 04:50:55)

  • Registered: 2009-08-22
  • Posts: 122

Re: USB Wireless adapter problem

further info from terminal:

lsmod | grep rtl8187:

rtl8187                25170  0 
eeprom_93cx6             963  1 rtl8187
mac80211              122862  2 rtl8187,ath5k
cfg80211               86977  4 rtl8187,ath5k,mac80211,ath
led_class               1757  3 rtl8187,ath5k,sdhci
usbcore                98185  6 rtl8187,uvcvideo,usbhid,ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd

iwconfig:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan1     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"linksys"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:1D:7E:58:41:1F   
          Bit Rate=1 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=36/70  Signal level=-74 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          
pan0      no wireless extensions.

ifconfig:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1d:92:53:c0:6c  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:27 Base address:0xc000 

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:79 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:79 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:8086 (7.8 KiB)  TX bytes:8086 (7.8 KiB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:15:af:8b:76:cb  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

wlan1     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1a:ef:07:5c:40  
          inet addr:192.168.1.104  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21a:efff:fe07:5c40/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:203 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:551 (551.0 B)  TX bytes:20319 (19.8 KiB)