RTL8187l Chipset with disconnects and slow speed.

[pike168]

I purchased an Alfa AWUSO36H USB card for wireless pen testing after hearing that it was well recommened on the backtrack message boards. I am using in on my new Kali install and i'm experiencing a few problems with the card. When im using it for internet purposes its very slow and when i try to download a file from the internet, the connection eventually drops and i cannot seem to reconnect to the wifi network. Below is some information which may provide helpful to more knowlegable users.

Below is the airomon-ng output:


root@kali-laptop:~# airmon-ng
Interface Chipset Driver
wlan1 Realtek RTL8187L rtl8187 - [phy2]


This is the information being given when im trying to download a file, im about 15mBs into the download at this point:


root@kali-laptop:~# iwconfig wlan1 && ifconfig wlan1
wlan1 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"PIKE168"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: 7C:4C:A5:1F:6A:F5
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-15 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:2037 Invalid misc:48 Missed beacon:0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
wlan1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:c0:ca:6d:9d:7a
inet addr:192.168.0.8 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2c0:caff:fe6d:9d7a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:7940 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:5073 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:11322396 (10.7 MiB) TX bytes:462625 (451.7 KiB)


And soon after the connection drops and will not reconnect, it then shows the following information upon disconnection:


root@kali-laptop:~# iwconfig wlan1 && ifconfig wlan1
wlan1 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
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off

wlan1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:c0:ca:6d:9d:7a
inet addr:192.168.0.8 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2c0:caff:fe6d:9d7a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:14725 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:9201 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:21555532 (20.5 MiB) TX bytes:833677 (814.1 KiB)


I then looked at what modules the kernel was using for the card using lsmod, below is the relevant information:


Module Size Used by
rtl8187 31077 0
mac80211 287461 1 rtl8187
cfg80211 123887 2 mac80211,rtl8187
eeprom_93cx6 12641 1 rtl8187
usbcore 109555 5 uvcvideo,rtl8187,rts5139,ehci_hcd,xhci_hcd


Here is the modinfo of these loaded modules



filename: /lib/modules/3.7-trunk-686-pae/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtl818x/rtl8187/rtl8187.ko
description: RTL8187/RTL8187B USB wireless driver
depends: mac80211,eeprom_93cx6,cfg80211,usbcore
intree: Y
vermagic: 3.7-trunk-686-pae SMP mod_unload modversions 686

filename: /lib/modules/3.7-trunk-686-pae/kernel/net/mac80211/mac80211.ko
license: GPL
description: IEEE 802.11 subsystem
depends: cfg80211
intree: Y
vermagic: 3.7-trunk-686-pae SMP mod_unload modversions 686
parm: max_nullfunc_tries:Maximum nullfunc tx tries before disconnecting (reason 4). (int)
parm: max_probe_tries:Maximum probe tries before disconnecting (reason 4). (int)
parm: probe_wait_ms:Maximum time(ms) to wait for probe response before disconnecting (reason 4). (int)
parm: ieee80211_default_rc_algo:Default rate control algorithm for mac80211 to use (charp)

filename: /lib/modules/3.7-trunk-686-pae/kernel/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko
description: wireless configuration support
license: GPL
author: Johannes Berg
depends: rfkill
intree: Y
vermagic: 3.7-trunk-686-pae SMP mod_unload modversions 686
parm: ieee80211_regdom:IEEE 802.11 regulatory domain code (charp)
parm: cfg80211_disable_40mhz_24ghz:Disable 40MHz support in the 2.4GHz band (bool)

[EnZiX]

Confirm, I'm having the same issue (Alfa AWUSO36H USB card)

[Malachai]

I myself notice some thing acting weird with the same card. It's slow or sometimes it takes a while to load , or change the mac address.

[ancalgon]

Ya having the same problem here, it worked pretty well in backtrack 5 and in Windows it works great but in Kali... Not so much.

[Lordx19]

I was actually using the NHR and it sucked, so I bought the 036H and it's worked wonders since I got it last month. Maybe try removing NetWork manager and get Wicd? There are tons of problems with network manager. I'm just confirming that my 036H works great out of the box in Kali with Wicd. No problems whatsoever.

[halo9en]

There's no word on fix yet? Maybe it depends on kernel version and using the latest kernel could help?

[networkmagician419]

Problems for me as well

[kali1981]

try this its work for me http://forums.kali.org/showthread.php?17048-change-power-frag-rts-to-your-alfa-card-script

[ArthurBorsboom]

I have the same issues. Changing the parameters from the script, reduces the disconnect time from 1 minute to 5 minutes for me. I have the same issue on Kali x64 (kernel 3.7) as on Lubuntu x64 (kernel 3.10).

After reading a lot of forum posts and complaints, I guess the issue is in the kernel driver rtl8187.

Anybody have other suggestions to solve this issue?

[KaliTut]

maybe you are having a heating problem
all what you are talking about is the same thing I had but I fix that by moding my wifi adapter and i did fix the heating problem now its working fine and I'm getting internet from AP that is 50 meters away it's in the next building!
The Alfa AWUS036H (https://kalitut.com/alfa-network-awus036h/) is perfect but your issue may be in the driver