Thanks for the help and sharing this , just to let you know i had this driver working on windows 8.1 64bit ( some features not working sadly), i just had to make windows 8.1 accept unsigned driver , i didn't know about your tool sadly but windows 8.1 has an option to disabled installing only signed drivers. And thank you kevsamiga and anyone else who worked on this driver , i really appreciate this work <3 ps : sorry for my bad english :s
Hi, thanks for all these works, Kevsamiga, I download the "final" version 3 to see there's is yet another "final" version 3.1, so I'd merely suggest to please at least edit your irst post to say there's many added versions, this is more work for you I know but if not then it's okay, leave it to people to read the whole thread and pay you their respects.
I plan no more additions to this driver. I did what I could with what there was. Alfa is discontinuing the 036H, and there won't ever be latter OS specific drivers for such an old card. So like it or not, it's time to move along... I haven't been as active on the forums of late as my time has become stretched between different stuff. I'm always on the lookout for anything new though...
To follow up - I got this driver going, it seems to work very well, thank you for this mod, Kev. I also have a NH and NHA with Ralink and Atheros chips, those cannot get the particular access point I like, but the H gets it with ease, I think it may be the data transmission rate thing that was mentioned. I think the H is the best unit, I also had best luck with a NHR adapter before it broke, it seems nobody else liked the NHR, but it worked well for me. I've a beam antenna, so I think reception is the key for me, being able to receive a low rate data stream without the adapter not working.
What features don't work? I am interested because I am planing to migrate from Win7 to Win 8.1 soon and would like to use these drivers.
@kevsamiga I am a little confused which final driver should I download ?! new link in every post, I downloaded the link in your first post in this thread, is it the final version ? I'd like to simply say that your are a great person !! I've been owning my Alfa since 5 years and never been able to establish a proper WiFi virtual AP to connect my phone to. Now I can !! THANK YOU VERY MUCH !! SENSEI !! --- Double Post Merged, 9 Jan 2015 --- @kevsamiga Looks like the problem is still persistent, I don't think it a driver problem though, maybe a windows problem. The virtual AP on AWUS036H keeps dropping the connection, sometimes it is connected but says no internet access. If you disconnect your phone then connect again it doesn't work until you disconnect the AWUS036H card from its USB cable then restart Virtual AP then connect your phone again for it to work. did someone managed to solve this, this problem is in the original drivers from ALFA and even your driver, though your driver is a little more stable and have more options than ALFA I'm grateful anyway.
Hello, With this modified driver, I notice I can change the "Region Domain", does this change what 100% power correlates to? If so, what region has the highest power limits? I do not notice Bolivia as an option. In linux you can do "iw reg set BO" and set txpower to say 30dbm, however I have not been able to find any kernels that actually toggle power, they all read about 20dbm from a meter regardless of what iwconfig claims.
Region domain only controls allowed channels. Eg, 11 in US 13 in Europe. The 30dbm put forth by ALFA is an outright marketing lie, the eeprom only goes up to 15/17dbm as verified by RT mass production kit. And even if it wasn't, unless power is turned up both ways at each end of the link, it's pointless on it's own if you can't recieve. Even the Skyworks PA inside is only specced for +26dbm anyhow. This is why the output on a meter never changes, it's already at maximum, the only thing powercontrol allows you is to turn it DOWN. Because big antenna's and reducing to low power is both necessary and good. If everybody starts shouting, no-one would be able to hear. Welcome to Europe, where the allotted output pwr allowed is limiting and even if you manage to bypass it somehow by putting a booster inline, everyone else is still transmitting just as badly as you were before....It's 2 way communication so it's catch 22 whatver you do.
Thanks Kevsamiga!, It seems the "high power mode" option with your driver caused the greatest boost, but not quite 30dBm. On an Agilent RF power meter (I think a E4418B) with settings maxed out, I actually measured about 27.5dBm. This wasn't with a real antenna, which might cause lower output due to vSWR or there might have been out-of-band splatter. I was able to turn the power down with your driver, but the popular linux kernels I tried had 0 effect when specifying dBm to txpower. As far as I know 802.11 devices are supposed to calibrated and limited in the eeprom, I thought the 036H had power limits that were hackable without flashing anything, and that the PA just happened to work past spec. I guess I'm curious if there is eeprom limits, and if flashing something is required/possible. I currently live in the US, and I have an Amateur Radio License, so I can operate 1500watts P.E.P. on some 2.4GHz channels (if only I could afford an amp that big at that frequency) as long as I don't use encryption and keep SSID as my call sign. I was actually trying to get nice control on the 036H power so that I could dial it down to the minimum level needed for a few different situations, but it seems like the percentage control is pretty inaccurate according to some initial measurements.
Like I say, the PA in the 036H is only rated for 26dbm, so those figures in high power mode hooked up to a power meter makes sense. Even if you are in Bolivia or Belize. Your not going to get 30dbm, not even close. Nearly every adapter on the planet always underperforms in the specs, and some way underperform. And no two radio's are made 100% identical even if they use the same components like you probably already know due to slightly different tolerances in those components. On linux, there was an older RTL8187L driver that you could actually set highpower 1 with the iwpriv flags. On the new one you don't have that, and just set tx power directly, but I don't think it does as much. I just tried with the modded driver to implement the same behaviour in Windows as that linux driver (specifically early beini ones), since the unlocked settings were already there, they just needed adding to the .inf. Along with other settings like being able to trade data rate for distance etc. All the ALFA realteks can set the rate directly it's not 036H exclusive, I just haven't got round to implementing it for the 8188RU, 8188EU or others yet.
Hi, i know it can be too old to reply to this topic but i hope you get notified and reply to this. I've managed to install your driver on Windows 8.1 using compatibility settings and it works very well, ( i installed it on Windows 7 too). I've read the docs and read me your provided and you've said that you put a limit to TX power so that the MAX TX power of RTL8187L chipset will be 100mw (although the card supports 1W). many people like me buy this card to take the full advantage of the hardware but until now i couldn't find ANY WAY to use the card on 1000mW TX power. Linux is a whole different thing where you can patch the wireless drivers using CRDA ( and although I've patched my drivers and i get 33dbm on "iwconfig" but yet i don't believe it is REALLY 33dbm or 2W). i have a metal AP from mikrotik that has 1.6W output TXpower but it is not a Wireless network adapter. i really need more than 100mW TX power out of my card but your driver is also limiting the TX power. is there any way to set the max and EFFECTIVE 1000mW on your driver for the RTL8187L chipset? Really appreciate what you did for the driver and thanks in advance.
To get maximum power you need to enable the "high power mode" option (In the windows adapter settings dialogue). As kevsamiga says, and I measured with an accurate power meter, you won't get past about 550mW. 1W is a myth.
Thanks for the reply. i enabled that option in Windows 7 (not available in 8.1) and didn't notice much difference. Why 1W is a myth? are you saying that the chip RTL8187 does not support 1W or the driver (original or the homebrew version)? is the driver limiting the power? i really don't understand why it is like that. if the chip is not so powerful then why bother buy it while there are many other similar wireless network adapters like for TP-link or D-link's that are also very capable for pen tests. 1W is the maximum output power which is legal in most countries so i don't really think that's the case. so if i buy the 2W AWUS036NH then the 2W will be useless?
It helps to first actually be in those countries where 1w is allowed (like Bolvia or Belize). The adapters are also sold targeted for different markets. Otherwise the AP will just send packets straight back to the adapter to adjust it's power level back down to the level it should legally be for the country your in. (802.11d). You can't run illegal power if everyone else isn't doing the same because they have already worked out how to stop "violators" by getting the AP to do the dirty work (so the AP must be "doctored" as well)
Okay, supposing that both adapters and AP are set to Bolivia, will there be any other interference that can force the connection to run on lower power? can i get 1W txpower out of my card with your drivers?
Thanks for this great contribution! I'm having difficulty getting MAC spoofing to work; hoping I'm just missing something simple, but regardless of what I enter under Device Manager->Realtek RTL8187 [...]->Advanced->Network Address->Value, the ALFA Wireless LAN utility still shows the original MAC under both General and Status tabs, as does ipconfig -all. Any idea why this may not be working? Thanks much in advance
I think IIRC MAC spoofing only works when using NDIS 5 (Windows XP) driver. It doesn't seem to stick on Vista and above. The drivers for the 8187L were re-written for Vista and in the beginning (late 2006/early 2007) they were buggy and less sensitive than their XP counterparts.
Aw...well, the first post in this thread lists "Implemented Adapter Network Address substitution (for MAC address spoofing under Windows )" under both "XP" and "Vista/7." So just to be sure I'm clear, the latter case isn't correct - the only way to do this is with XP (first time it's listed), not 7 (2nd time)? I thought maybe I was doing something wrong, as later it was also stated: "Any missing functionality is now in Driver advanced options anyway where it actually belongs and works 100%, and corresponding GUI options that didn't work given the boot." Thanks in advance for your reply
I've had it working (MAC spoofing), although in what exact setup I don't fully remember as it's ages since I touched all this stuff. I also remember something about spoofed MAC addresses on Windows having to start with a certain code. But this was all ages ago. I've had a sleep since then.
