HOWTO: Get RTL8187B (ID: 8197) Working. Step by Step

[Petawa]

When the internet's working (using rtl8187):

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"default"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:13:F7:AC:1A:B6
          Bit Rate=1 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2346 B
          Link Quality=49/64  Signal level=25/65
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

I know my signal quality's kind of low, I'm connecting through the ceiling to to apartment above mine (with their knowledge).

After it stops working on rtl8187:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"default"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:13:F7:AC:1A:B6
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2346 B
          Link Quality=49/64  Signal level=23/65
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

After rmmod rtl8187, modprobe ndiswrapper (and either with or without "/etc/init.d/networking restart", doesn't make a difference:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

And just for good measure, "ndiswrapper -l" when rtl8187 is disabled:

net8187b : driver installed
        device (0BDA:8187) present (alternate driver: rtl8187)

The signal strength with rtl8187 is wildly varying..I'm sure its in part my not-so-great signal, but Vista on the same machine never has a problem. Hence why I'm doing ndiswrapper in the first place.

[Tom--d]

Ah I see the problem!

Your wireless card has the ID of 8187 (mine is 8197, makes A LOT of difference)

Thats an easy one.

Use this driver attached to the post and see what happens.

[Petawa]

Exact same messages, no change. It shows hardware detected with the new driver as well, but all iwconfig has to say is

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

[Tom--d]

I do not understand :S

It should work!
As the driver i gave is the Windows 98 driver for that card. (the driver for my card is modified of win98)

mm...
post the outcome of lspci and lsusb and ifconifg

also, post the outcome uname -r


edi: reinstall ndiswrapper

[Petawa]

ifconfig

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1a:92:8c:01:04
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:19

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1a:92:8c:05:6e
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:17

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

lsusb

Bus 007 Device 007: ID 04a9:1097 Canon, Inc.
Bus 007 Device 006: ID 0424:223a Standard Microsystems Corp. 8-in-1 Card Reader
Bus 007 Device 005: ID 0424:2504 Standard Microsystems Corp. USB 2.0 Hub
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 0424:2502 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 0bda:8187 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 06a3:8021 Saitek PLC
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 1532:0009
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82P965/G965 Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82P965/G965 PCI Express Root Port (rev 02)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 02)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HB/HR (ICH8/R) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) 4 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) 2 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8600 GTS (rev a1)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)
03:00.0 SATA controller: JMicron Technologies, Inc. JMicron 20360/20363 AHCI Controller (rev 02)
03:00.1 IDE interface: JMicron Technologies, Inc. JMicron 20360/20363 AHCI Controller (rev 02)
05:02.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy (rev 04)
05:02.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy Game Port (rev 04)
05:02.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port (rev 04)
05:04.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8001 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 14)

trying the reinstall now...

[Tom--d]

Also, please post the outcome of uname -r

[Petawa]

Reinstall didn't change anything,
uname -r
2.6.24-16-generic

BTW, thanks for trying to help

[Tom--d]

No problem.

Well. I cant get my head around it.

You are using the same kernel as me, same driver.. but it will not work for you
mm..

download the drivers from here:

http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/NET...007-WHQL.shtml

and try them all. Dont do Vista, they dont work. nor 64bit


Ahhh.. important, are you on 32bit (x86) or 64bit?

[Petawa]

32 bit
I have to do some homework now (I didn't realize how long I've spent!! Having to rmmod/modprobe or restart into Vista to post a reply or see yours each time is time consuming!)
I'll definitely try the other drivers next weekend if I don't get any time before, and maybe even during the week someone will come up with a solution to why the default rtl8187 are so flaky, since there's a lot of people having that problem too.

Thanks again for the help so far!

[Tom--d]

Thats ok
Also, drop a email to Realtek, you may get drivers

I did but perfer the Win98 modified driver.