# need a FULLY working wireless-g pci card suggestion [SOLVED]

## gnychis

Hey guys,

I've battled quite some time looking for a fully working wireless-g card that is compatible with SMP processors.  I battled with the rt2500 and rt2x00 modules for weeks on my SMP system and they just do not want to work.

I'd greatly appreciate wireless card suggestions.  If you advise me towards a certain chipset, could you please give me card manufacturers and or card models that use the chipset and that is currently availible.

Thank you!

GeorgeLast edited by gnychis on Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:34 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## nalf38

are you using native linux drivers or ndiswrapper?  i'll admit that i don't have an smp system, but my NetGear WG111v2 USB card gave me supreme headaches for the longest time.  for a long time, i had to use ndiswrapper and a kernel that had preempt disabled, but now the most recent ndiswrapper works perfectly on my pre-emptible vanilla 2.6.15.4 kernel with the 16kb stack patch from Linuxant.

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## Monkeh

A Netgear WG311 should work. Don't hold me to that though. It uses madwifi drivers, I think.

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## UberLord

Only the intel ipw's maybe fully working and they're laptop only

madwifi - no ad-hoc mode

rt2500 - no master mode

rt2x00 - don't work yet

prism54 - no wpa

maybe ndiswrapper works for you.

Personally I'm using rt2500 at home in ad-hoc mode and prism54 in my laptop

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## Monkeh

Sorry to derail this a litle bit, but since UberLord seems to know what he's on about.. Would a WG311 (madwifi) work properly as a WAP under Linux? I'm not shelling out on your average buggy consumer WAP, so I'm gonna make me own.

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## UberLord

A madwifi based card (beware, not all WG311's have atheroc chipsets - the newer ones are broadcom iirc) can function very well as WAP.

It just cannot do ad-hoc mode.

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## Monkeh

Any way to tell if it's Atheros or Broadcom before buying?

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## UberLord

No. Which is a real real PITA

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## Monkeh

 *UberLord wrote:*   

> No. Which is a real real PITA

 

No kidding. Guess I'll just have to order one and return it if it's broadcom.. Any other atheros based cards (which are cheap. very cheap.) worth getting?

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## UberLord

Does the brand really matter? I buy edimax cards (dirt cheap) as they have (or had - lol) rt2500 chipsets which are great! Well, provided you don't use SMP or want to run a WAP - heh

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## Monkeh

 *UberLord wrote:*   

> Does the brand really matter? I buy edimax cards (dirt cheap) as they have (or had - lol) rt2500 chipsets which are great! Well, provided you don't use SMP or want to run a WAP - heh

 

Well, I want to run a WAP  :Wink:  Brand doesn't matter, as long as it'll do what I want. It won't need to work with SMP either (machine'll have a single Athlon XP 1900+).

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## gnychis

so theres no gaurenteed card for SMP?  :Sad: 

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## UberLord

 *gnychis wrote:*   

> so theres no gaurenteed card for SMP? 

 

Only card I know of that doesn't work with SMP is the atheros/madwifi cards. The other cards should work fine - especially ones with in-kernel drivers such as prism54

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## gnychis

is there anywhere i can find a list of wireless cards that are compatible with linux and different kernels?

Or a list of cards that are supported by prism54

this answer to the wireless pci card question in linux always seems to be wishy washy, like you never know what you're going to get

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## nevynxxx

 *gnychis wrote:*   

> is there anywhere i can find a list of wireless cards that are compatible with linux and different kernels?
> 
> Or a list of cards that are supported by prism54
> 
> this answer to the wireless pci card question in linux always seems to be wishy washy, like you never know what you're going to get

 

I'll second that. Except you can remove the "pci" from that last sentence!

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## gnychis

a wag311 worked very nicely with madwifi, unfortunately they're lik $75, but i borrowed one from a friend to try

how can you tell if a wg311 is atheros or broadcom?

is there any way to tell by serial numbers on the box?

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## Monkeh

 *gnychis wrote:*   

> a wag311 worked very nicely with madwifi, unfortunately they're lik $75, but i borrowed one from a friend to try
> 
> how can you tell if a wg311 is atheros or broadcom?
> 
> is there any way to tell by serial numbers on the box?

 

Doubt it. Only the rev 1's are Atheros as far as I can tell, and you're almost certainly not going to find one of them. HOWEVER, the WG311T's (faster and a bit more pricy), are, as far as I can tell, Atheros still.

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## gnychis

bahh the wg311T's are somewhat pricey  :Sad:   I need about 10 of the cards for an experiment so that would just be way too much.

any other definate atheros based cards?

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## gnychis

looks like i found a useful list:

http://customerproducts.atheros.com/customerproducts/RetailSearchPage.asp

http://madwifi.org/wiki/Compatibility#WG311

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## s0be

I hate to promote the TI chipset but, the WG311v2 cards using the acx driver support:

Wep, SMP(I havn't tested, but it's been removed from the 'bad' stuff list), Master mode, managed mode, ad-hoc mode, and monitor mode.  The acx-sm driver, which is being merged into the git tree of the netdev stuff will support all of that plus wpa-psk (it's based on the generic 802.11 framework).

I'm sending this right now from an atheros card in my laptop through an acx100 access point using wep.

On that note, if you can find ANY other chipset that fits your needs, take it.  I will never actively purchase anything I know has a TI chipset in it.  They DID release 1 release of a driver for this card for linux.  All they'd have to do is release the spec, and the driver would have been 100%.

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## gnychis

i decided to order this card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833127136

It was between that card and the WAG311, however the WAG311's antenna does not detatch, so i opted for the d-link card

i will let everyone know how it goes

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## glasgow69

If anyone is interested, I have just bought this laptop card (mini pci) to use in gentoo and Winxp 64, it has an atheros chipset and costs £18 quid in the UK, it's a,b,g and super g mode.  After some googling I've read that it works well under linux with the madwifi driver, although I can't confirm yet coz I'm just about to do an AMD64 install of gentoo.  Gigabyte GN WIAG02  http://www.pyramid.com/Product.aspx?StockCode=581126  After booting the AMD64 live disk, lspci tells me it is an Atheros chipset, you can also use them in a desktop with a PCI card adaptor for £10 quid http://www.solwise.co.uk/wireless-pci-slot-solwise.htm

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## rieger

 *gnychis wrote:*   

> i decided to order this card:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833127136
> 
> It was between that card and the WAG311, however the WAG311's antenna does not detatch, so i opted for the d-link card
> ...

 

does it work, with SMP?

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## gnychis

works perfectly with SMP and madwifi

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## rieger

 *gnychis wrote:*   

> works perfectly with SMP and madwifi

 

thanks.

I'll give my rt2x00 another try, if that fails, I might buy this card.

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## gnychis

no problem...

although the WAG311 antenna does not detatch, i think it is a better antenna... just something for you to think about!

the WAG311 also works perfectly with SMP and madwifi (i have one here too)

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