Latest Atheros modded Driver for Windows 7, Vista and WinXP

[XP x64 user]

Ok I have a WPN311 that I've installed drivers for under XP x64(sp2), Some from here and elsewhere, Heck I've even tried using a Vista x64 driver(Didn't work), Except for the Vista driver all others have installed, But none have connected to My WPN824v3 router, I've tried 108Mbps, 54G, None have connected, I have a D-Link DWL-G132(USB) in another PC running XP Pro(sp3-32bit) and It connects at 108Mbps to the Netgear router and the router has the latest firmware too, I've tried the following drivers for the Netgear WPN311:

atheros_v7.6.1.170_v1.21

atheros_v7.6.1.170_v1.26

atheros_ar5xxx_7.7.0.406_w9x-2k-xp

(WPN311 Drivers for all Win x64(SP, Vista and Win7))

atheros_ar5xxx_7.7.0.348_w9x-2k-xp

And all appear to work, But none will connect at any speed...

Edit: I'm a real dumb dumb, I forgot to get the MAC address, 406 Driver works, I'm connected at 108. Sorry to bother.

Edited November 6, 2009 by XP x64 user

[mobilenvidia]

First of all,

KUDOS for the efforts on the Atheros drivers !! Much appreciated

If I might ask : Additional feature request:

-> enable 5GHZ "outdoor" bands ... these are avaiable in US - 149 and up, gives you higher reach ....

-> enable 100mw for the 5GHZ bands

I switched to Senao 9220 MiniPCI cards for two older Notebooks to access my upgraded WNDR3700 based "A"

network running on channel 149 which gives me the best range ... channel 36.. low bands are more limited

This 149 channel on the 5MHZ band did not show up, channel 36 did tho, Intel 5100/5300 cards do not have any problem on 149

Today I was fiddling around with the drivers from here ... seems channel 14 is enabled for 2,4GHZ

and I was hoping that the additional channels in the 5GHZ bands would be enabled too, seems not.

Would it be possible to get these enabled as well ? Willing to help as far as my limited knowledge goes ...

TIA

Klaus

I'll see what I can do, there are no 5Ghz settings to play with like the 2.4Ghz ones.

Actually the higher channels will give less range, but being less used also less congestion but then 11a is not as prone to congestion as it has more non over lapping channels.

[Guest another guest]

I'll see what I can do, there are no 5Ghz settings to play with like the 2.4Ghz ones.

Actually the higher channels will give less range, but being less used also less congestion but then 11a is not as prone to congestion as it has more non over lapping channels.

Hi there,

I was hoping enabling the US based regional/country code would do the trick, similar to enabling the 12/13 ones for non-US and 14 for Japan on 2.4

I understand the principle of less range with higher frequencies, but seems the higher band are pushing more power, see the below for explanations:

... snip ...

Some differences:

FCC(US) limits average tx power to 27dBm on 1-11

ETSI(Europe) has a limit of 20dBm on 1-13, although individual countries could add further restrictions.

MKK(Japan) 20dBm on 1-14

In 11a, there are greater differences:

FCC - 17dBm on 36,40,44,48, 23dBm on 52,56,60,64, 30dBm on 149,153,157,161,165

ETSI - 20dBm on 36-64 and 27dBm on 100-140

MKK - 23dBm on 34,38,42,46 and possibly 20dBm on 100-140 plus a few other odd lower channels.

.. snip ...

so I set my router/AP (which is BTW also using the Atheros 9220 as my MiniPCI card does too) to US to

give me the higher power (27db vs 20dBm) on 2,4GHZ and the 30dBm vs 20dBm for the >100 bands on 5GHZ.

Works like a charm with Intel 5100/5300 cards and unlike on i.e. channel 36 I can stream movies even

in the "worst" covered rooms of my place ... getting the 9220 cards for the old NBs I did not saw

the 1xx bands, setting the router to 36 immediately gave me a proper connect but on 36 I could no

longer get a proper signal in one or two places it was working fine before - so think I should

be staying on i.e. 149 for the better reach (seems the higher "outdoor" output makes up and then

some versus the theoretically higher frequencies worse penetration through walls and such)

Well, for those interested, the WNDR3700 does not (yet) support the DFS channels between 100...140

(claiming some missing certifikations) which I *guess* Atheros might support already in their drivers

following one post in this thread from Boardbabe from Norway. If you ask why I am using 5GHZ in the

first place ? Well, funny story, the braindamaged wireless subwoofer of my Samsung soundsystem which

else works nicely with my Samsung LCD-TV is causing some havoc to pretty much all 2,4GHZ transmisisons ...

Possible solution was to switch to 5GHZ and as most cards I am using supported 5GHZ I went that way ....

Upgrading to the WNDR2700 gave me a nice speed boost and added functionality versus the DLINK DIR-625 I was using before

Switching to 5GGHZ on my existing 3945/4965/5100/5300 cards then worked nicely and my Samsung-caused issue were gone ....

Range coverage in the new house I moved to a bit ago was quite nice even using the 5GHZ band after moving around the

Router/AP and switching to those US-settings which gave me the higher transmission power (I am in germany btw)

So I was left with two old Notebooks using Intel 2200 cards and my wife yelling about no Internet connection

when the TV and subwoofer set was switched on causing here MiniPCI card equipped NB to lose connection ....

This is where those MiniPCI Atheros 9220 based Senao EMP-7605 cards came into play which I expected should do the trick ...

Now I seem t have the following choices

-> get rid of that Samsung wireless subwoofer causing the issue in the first place but would like to avoid this as its quite nice

-> go back to 2,4GHZ but with 5 ppl in the house its does happen that ppl want to access the Internet when others watch TV ....

-> Use 5GHZ on lower bands (i.e. 36) which gives me less range and almost no coverage in 1-2 places I would like to be able to use

So the two solutions making the most sense to me are:

-> Asking you nicely for some possible solution to enable those 149 and up channels on the 5GHZ band for Atheros drivers

-> Swapping the Atheros AR9220 cards vs Ralink RT2800T which seems to do not have the Atheros limitions with regions/channels

I understand this is a very specific set of circumstances and you might better like using the New Zealand spring/early summer for something

else than solving one germans issues - while I could imagine that other ppl might as well enjoy more flexibility with their Atheros cards ....

This became quite a long post, lol, .... but anyway ... thanks again for all your work on the Atheros drivers

Klaus

[Guest another guest]

Hmmh, wierd stuff ...

added the registry hack to enable Regional selection -> worked, so now I can select US, DE etc

which SHOULD help getting access to the >100 bands for the drivers ... but not so it seems ....

Selected US -> no change - still not seeing the AP at 149

Checking access to another AP set to 13 shows even when set to US channel 13 still shows up ..

So I do wonder if this regional setting does change anything at all ...

I found another setting "Netband" in the registry, fiddling around with that one now ...

Laters

Klaus

[Guest Fileurrr]

Hello !!

Thanks for your work on atheros driver but the last driver modded that you post dont work on my windows 7 x64 ( atheros 928x)!

And i have a question, what i must configure to up the range of my 928x in the settings ?

Thanks and sorry for my english~

[mobilenvidia]

Hmmh, wierd stuff ...

added the registry hack to enable Regional selection -> worked, so now I can select US, DE etc

which SHOULD help getting access to the >100 bands for the drivers ... but not so it seems ....

Selected US -> no change - still not seeing the AP at 149

Checking access to another AP set to 13 shows even when set to US channel 13 still shows up ..

So I do wonder if this regional setting does change anything at all ...

I found another setting "Netband" in the registry, fiddling around with that one now ...

Laters

Klaus

Ah the country codes, I vaguely remember playing with these a couple of years back now and getting the same result.

Netband changes what the card can do in each band, all bit sensitive.

I made a chart somewhere to show what each bit does.

The driver may get the region setting from the version of Windows running.

My Buffallo 11n router is a US model and hence it only does the lower Channel in 11a

I can't really test the upper channels

Hello !!

Thanks for your work on atheros driver but the last driver modded that you post dont work on my windows 7 x64 ( atheros 928x)!

And i have a question, what i must configure to up the range of my 928x in the settings ?

Thanks and sorry for my english~

Doesn't work how ?

[Guest Fileurrr]

:< When i install it for my 928X my card doesn't work ( the card disapear)

Atm i am using the version 8.0.0.171 inf modded and they work fine.

[Guest Jeff]

Windows 7 64bit will now allow unsigned drivers to be used and they will be blocked on bootup...

A driver that lacks a valid digital signature, or was altered after it was signed, can't be installed on 64-bit versions of Windows. You will only see this message if you try to install such a driver on a 64-bit version of Windows.

[mobilenvidia]

Windows 7 64bit will now allow unsigned drivers to be used and they will be blocked on bootup...

A driver that lacks a valid digital signature, or was altered after it was signed, can't be installed on 64-bit versions of Windows. You will only see this message if you try to install such a driver on a 64-bit version of Windows.

I'm using all sorts of unsigned drivers on Win7 x64

[Guest Italiano]

I'm using all sorts of unsigned drivers on Win7 x64

How do you install them?

[Guest Jeff]

As far as I know you can only load unsigned drivers if you put Windows 7 into "test mode". At least in the final RTM version.

I'm using all sorts of unsigned drivers on Win7 x64

[Lych]

As far as I know you can only load unsigned drivers if you put Windows 7 into "test mode". At least in the final RTM version.

Thats correct. Windows 7 x64 (and Vista x64 I think) will only use signed drivers. You can install unsigned drivers, they just won't be used. In the RCs you could enable test signing mode and disable integrity checks to use whatever driver you wanted. I'm sure you can still enable/disable those modes in the RTM version (I don't think its a good idea though). Luckily, I found a compatible AR5008 driver on Windows Update's Catalog site :).

I'll get on my soap box for a second. I think its terrible that companies like Atheros make it so difficult to actually use their products. Windows 7 has been in beta testing for a very long time and Atheros had plenty of time to prep a compatible driver and make it available to oems and end users. Its even worse if you have a desktop WAN adapter from Linksys, D-Link, or Net Gear (they haven't even released Windows 7 drivers yet).

[mobilenvidia]

Hmmmm, does Win7 RTM come with Test mode enabled when installed.

As I have never enabled test mode in any Beta RC and RTM

The latter v8 Atheros drivers should be working OK

I had disconnects (often) with the early v8's

[Lych]

Hmmmm, does Win7 RTM come with Test mode enabled when installed.

As I have never enabled test mode in any Beta RC and RTM

That is what I find confusing. Some users are having no problems installing unsigned drivers on Win7x64 and others (like me) cannot without using BCDedit hacks. The official position about this from Microsoft is "Signed device drivers are a key security feature in Windows. Drivers installed on X64-based computers must have a digital signature." The full article about this is here. If anyone can shed some light on this, I would be grateful.

[Guest another guest]

Ah the country codes, I vaguely remember playing with these a couple of years back now and getting the same result.

Netband changes what the card can do in each band, all bit sensitive.

I made a chart somewhere to show what each bit does.

The driver may get the region setting from the version of Windows running.

My Buffallo 11n router is a US model and hence it only does the lower Channel in 11a

I can't really test the upper channels

Doesn't work how ?

--> I made a chart somewhere to show what each bit does.

Do you still have this aroundm didn´t find it in this thread ..

TIA

Klaus

[war59312]

Hi

Any chance "Scan Valid Interval" can be hacked so I can disable it completely?

Why would I want to do that? To fix this damn bug: http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=3082.0

See last page as well and you will see that "Scan Valid Interval" is the setting that is causing the problem.

So if someone could find a way to disable it completely or perhaps extend the 120 seconds to some high number, say an hour, than problem solved.

Of course I have no idea if it's possible, but thanks for checking it out..

Thanks a lot,

Will

[Guest Marv]

Hi

Any chance "Scan Valid Interval" can be hacked so I can disable it completely?

Why would I want to do that? To fix this damn bug: http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=3082.0

See last page as well and you will see that "Scan Valid Interval" is the setting that is causing the problem.

So if someone could find a way to disable it completely or perhaps extend the 120 seconds to some high number, say an hour, than problem solved.

Of course I have no idea if it's possible, but thanks for checking it out..

Thanks a lot,

Will

One of the settings that the modified driver unlocks for manual configure is background scanning enabled/disabled. Disable that and u won't have a periodic interruption caused by the card looking for wireless connections in the background. The only downside (that i'm aware of) is that you won't be able to search for available wireless broadcasts, but then if you're not roaming it shouldn't matter.

[Guest Piggy]

I recently updated my pc to win7 32bit.

I have a smcwpci-g eu wificard with a Atheros AG5005 chip.

I downloaded the atheros_v8.0.0.225_v1.28 drivers. And got my wifi to work.

BUT now i'm getting BSOD all the time.

Pleas Help

[Lych]

I recently updated my pc to win7 32bit.

I have a smcwpci-g eu wificard with a Atheros AG5005 chip.

I downloaded the atheros_v8.0.0.225_v1.28 drivers. And got my wifi to work.

BUT now i'm getting BSOD all the time.

Pleas Help

Did the bsod start before you upgraded the drivers? What is the exact error message? If the errors started after you installed the modded driver, try installing an unmodified one like the regular v8.0.0.238..

[Guest Piggy]

Did the bsod start before you upgraded the drivers? What is the exact error message? If the errors started after you installed the modded driver, try installing an unmodified one like the regular v8.0.0.238..

Thanks for the fast reply.

The BSOD are random got 3 different ones. I uninstalled and reistalled de modded drivers and lowerd my ram frequency(because it was overclocked) to verify that the BSOD are realy because of the modded drivers.

About the unmodified drivers do they normaly work. Because I tried some other unmodified driver versions and they would not install.

I'll post my findings

[Guest Piggy]

The unmodified drivers won't install. But still no BSOD.

After scanning the web I found out that the chip of my smcwpci-g eu is a Atheros AR2413A not a AR5005.

Could that be the reason why the unmodified driver failed to work???

[mobilenvidia]

The unmodified drivers won't install. But still no BSOD.

After scanning the web I found out that the chip of my smcwpci-g eu is a Atheros AR2413A not a AR5005.

Could that be the reason why the unmodified driver failed to work???

Nope the AR2413A is the Radio chip.

Do you have an orignal driver ?

I could do with the INF file from it, attach it here (zipped), better yet PM it, as I may forget here.

[Lych]

Nope the AR2413A is the Radio chip.

Do you have an orignal driver ?

I could do with the INF file from it, attach it here (zipped), better yet PM it, as I may forget here.

I think I found his original driver on smc's website. Here is the inf from the XP version of the driver.

SMCWPCIG.zip

[mobilenvidia]

Looks like your card is made by Planex

I found a driver from 2006 here http://members.driverguide.com/driver/device.php?hwid=PCI\VEN_168C%26DEV_001A%26SUBSYS_EE241113%26REV_01&t=1

Your SUBSYS is not supported in any new drivers.

So why you are having the issues above. (not installing)

Your card is quite ancient, try in the modded driver to set the speed to anything but the 11n settings

try to set all the settings to minimum or lower them.

Most of the newer features won't of course be supported in the WLAN card

Its going to be trial and error.

[war59312]

One of the settings that the modified driver unlocks for manual configure is background scanning enabled/disabled. Disable that and u won't have a periodic interruption caused by the card looking for wireless connections in the background. The only downside (that i'm aware of) is that you won't be able to search for available wireless broadcasts, but then if you're not roaming it shouldn't matter.

Sadly that makes no difference. The two options seem to be completely different. But yes I already disabled that function.

Thanks for trying..