RTL8187l Chipset with disconnects and slow speed.
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:
Code:
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:
Code:
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:
Code:
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:
Code:
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
Code:
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)
