more on the USR2410 NIC

lincomatic · 05-29-2002

i've been wanting to have a prism card to mess with for a while. lucky me, a colleague bought one and hates it so now i have it.

the USR drivers really suck in XP...only beta. they are done in such a nonstandard way that you don't even get the PCMCIA eject button in your task bar to remove it with. and it looks like a wired lan card instead of a wireless card, so management has to be done solely thru USR's lousy software. but hey, what to you expect for $34.95 after rebate?

took a look @ the FCC ID on the back: LLM002 WL11000-1 and googled WL11000...
lo and behold, it's really a Eumitcom WL11000 card. they merged with accton, so here is the current product link:

http://www.acctontech.com/products_s...E&cat=Wireless

so is this card really a piece o sh*t? not really. it definitely isn't as sensitive as the orinocos but it works fine for me. slightly worse range but ok in my house. on the other hand, in my colleague's house it sucks. it can't even find the AP in his living room unlike my orinoco which works all the way out to the street.
i'm not sure why the performance is so patchy, but i did some range detection tests walking as far away from my AP as i could and still still get a signal, and it wasn't that much worse than my orinoco.

anyway tons of other cards are using exactly the same hardware, and they are not necessarily cheap. take a look at these:
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...orking%2Fct_Id>#
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...?sku=S248-1002
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...?sku=S199-1020

look familiar? and i'll bet there's tons more. so even if u think this card is junk, it's the same junk that costs more than double. not a bad deal for experimenting. i just wonder if the drivers/utilities from other manufacturers will work with it too. at least in linux, there's specific support for it, so kismet here i come!

blackwave · 05-29-2002

Quote:

Originally posted by lincomatic
the USR drivers really suck in XP...only beta.

Thanks for the info and link, I bought one of these cards about a month ago when I heard about the rebate, I haven't had time to play with it, I use XP and already downloaded the drivers, but noticed the BETA... yikes.. have you taken this USR card apart yet, or been interested to figure a way to add an external antenna?

PS the link was probably jacking during URL parsing.. because it doesn't take me anywhere

lincomatic · 05-29-2002

sorry about the link. you can just search on the accton site if you are interested.

ok i've tried both SMC and Belkin drivers on XP and they both suck just as bad. neither of them shows it as a wireless card. at least with belkin the eject icon shows up to allow you to stop the device before ejecting. but the belkin util doesn't seem to know how to talk to the card properly...it shows channel 0.

smc's utility works just like the USR one, but the driver is even worse. you don't even get a network icon in your tray, much less an eject icon. accton's driver package runs identically to SMC's.

as far as i can tell, they're all shipping the same driver w/ some minor tweaks.

lincomatic · 05-29-2002

forgot to ans your other question...
i was hoping someone else would work out the antenna mod first.

if not, i'll prob try opening the antenna casing a few weeks. too busy to mess with it at the moment. there's nothing under that sticker but more plastic, so i think it'll have to be cracked open on the seams to get inside...not fun.

lincomatic · 06-03-2002

OK, I've gotten some photos and indeed the card has pads for attaching an antenna jack. Now let's figure out how to do it.

http://www.geocities.com/lincomatic/usr2410.html

blackwave · 06-03-2002

Quote:

Originally posted by lincomatic
OK, I've gotten some photos and indeed the card has pads for attaching an antenna jack. Now let's figure out how to do it.

http://www.geocities.com/lincomatic/usr2410.html

Would it suit us just to use bare wires to an N-Type, or should we go for the full find-the-right-part, fix the breaks? I wonder if we can order the antenna jack switch from USR? Or at least find a compatible part number.

Thanks again lincomatic!

lincomatic · 06-03-2002

the problem w/ the N-type is it's kind of big isn't it? I'm thinking of making a pigtail like we use on the ORiNOCOs.

order from USR? haha dream on. you know the ways co's feel about ppl hacking their hw...

btw, thanks to Thorn's reference to http://www.teletronics.com i've found yet another card which is the same as the USR2410. They also have a card w/ part number WL11000 and their utilities are by far the best of all the ones i've tried. use the teletronics WL1100 drivers and utility instead of the crap that USR supplies. The teletronics utility has all kinds of stuff the others don't have like site survey, link test, an AP browser (great, it's like a poor man's netstumbler since you can't use netstumbler w/ Prism cards). you can even change your MAC addr from it. XLNT mon!

lincomatic · 06-03-2002

just played w/ the teletronics site survey util. man it's great...scans all the channels and shows the signal strength so you can use it to figure out which channel is best for your current location. weird thing is it scans all the way up to channel 14!
i looked into the "about" tab, and for some weird reason it shows my USR card's region is Canada!

blackwave · 06-03-2002

Quote:

Originally posted by lincomatic
btw, thanks to Thorn's reference to http://www.teletronics.com

Thanks for the sugg and ref to the url, I must have missed it. I will try this out later tonight. I was hoping to wait for the XP to become a little more solid for the USR, but it looks like everyone is beta for XP...

Making the pigtail would also mean adding a jack, which would be fine by me(and probably the best idea), as long as the parts are easily accessible and I don't have to buy a box of 500 of them.

lincomatic · 06-03-2002

btw i found thorn's link in another thread about prism cards w/ a built-in jack...he was recommending a teletronics card, and then i noticed that WL11000 on the teletronics site when i was browsing it. THANKS THORN!

although all the drivers are beta for XP they work ok...except that they don't work w/ XP native configuration. you need to use the utils instead. (and no eject icon)..just pop the card out w/o stopping it and it's ok.

Thorn · 06-03-2002

lincomatic · 06-03-2002

found more info about the card @ the FCC. turns out Eumitcom is indeed the OEM. new info and FCC link at my updated page:

http://www.geocities.com/lincomatic/usr2410.html

GRR! downloaded chinese acrobat to see the schematic but they cut off the left half of 3 of the sheets. there are antenna select pins on one of the chips, but we can't see the part of the diagram w/ the antenna pads. wonder if we need to defeat the diversity circuitry when adding only 1 external antenna.

lincomatic · 06-06-2002

ok, finally found a link (thanks to wardriving.com) that shows how to add the antenna connector. pretty complicated procedure. i couldn't see it except from google's cache, though...guerilla.net is down again.

as i said in a prev post, the SMC card is the same as the USR2410.

http://www.guerrilla.net/reference/8...mod/index.html

lincomatic · 06-13-2002

seems like all the prism-based cards use the same crappy drivers in Windows. got a netgear card today for $30, and sure enough the drivers were from the same codebase as all the other prism cards i've tried. this one is not a eumitcom clone...quick check @ the FCC shows it's different. yet, the teletronics drivers work with it. it appears that the prism drivers are all interchangeable.

does anyone know of a prism card which has drivers that work properly in XP (i.e. 1) enables the eject icon 2) shows up as a wireless lan card)?

lincomatic · 06-13-2002

btw, this is why i like the WLAN utility bundled with the teletronics drivers the best. besides having this k00l site survey tool, it also has the most configuration options that i've found.

05-29-2002	#1 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	more on the USR2410 NIC i've been wanting to have a prism card to mess with for a while. lucky me, a colleague bought one and hates it so now i have it. the USR drivers really suck in XP...only beta. they are done in such a nonstandard way that you don't even get the PCMCIA eject button in your task bar to remove it with. and it looks like a wired lan card instead of a wireless card, so management has to be done solely thru USR's lousy software. but hey, what to you expect for $34.95 after rebate? took a look @ the FCC ID on the back: LLM002 WL11000-1 and googled WL11000... lo and behold, it's really a Eumitcom WL11000 card. they merged with accton, so here is the current product link: http://www.acctontech.com/products_s...E&cat=Wireless so is this card really a piece o sh*t? not really. it definitely isn't as sensitive as the orinocos but it works fine for me. slightly worse range but ok in my house. on the other hand, in my colleague's house it sucks. it can't even find the AP in his living room unlike my orinoco which works all the way out to the street. i'm not sure why the performance is so patchy, but i did some range detection tests walking as far away from my AP as i could and still still get a signal, and it wasn't that much worse than my orinoco. anyway tons of other cards are using exactly the same hardware, and they are not necessarily cheap. take a look at these: http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...orking%2Fct_Id># http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...?sku=S248-1002 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...?sku=S199-1020 look familiar? and i'll bet there's tons more. so even if u think this card is junk, it's the same junk that costs more than double. not a bad deal for experimenting. i just wonder if the drivers/utilities from other manufacturers will work with it too. at least in linux, there's specific support for it, so kismet here i come! __________________ ~lincomatic

05-29-2002	#3 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	sorry about the link. you can just search on the accton site if you are interested. ok i've tried both SMC and Belkin drivers on XP and they both suck just as bad. neither of them shows it as a wireless card. at least with belkin the eject icon shows up to allow you to stop the device before ejecting. but the belkin util doesn't seem to know how to talk to the card properly...it shows channel 0. smc's utility works just like the USR one, but the driver is even worse. you don't even get a network icon in your tray, much less an eject icon. accton's driver package runs identically to SMC's. as far as i can tell, they're all shipping the same driver w/ some minor tweaks. __________________ ~lincomatic

05-29-2002	#4 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	forgot to ans your other question... i was hoping someone else would work out the antenna mod first. if not, i'll prob try opening the antenna casing a few weeks. too busy to mess with it at the moment. there's nothing under that sticker but more plastic, so i think it'll have to be cracked open on the seams to get inside...not fun. __________________ ~lincomatic

06-03-2002	#5 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	OK, I've gotten some photos and indeed the card has pads for attaching an antenna jack. Now let's figure out how to do it. http://www.geocities.com/lincomatic/usr2410.html __________________ ~lincomatic

06-03-2002	#7 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	the problem w/ the N-type is it's kind of big isn't it? I'm thinking of making a pigtail like we use on the ORiNOCOs. order from USR? haha dream on. you know the ways co's feel about ppl hacking their hw... btw, thanks to Thorn's reference to http://www.teletronics.com i've found yet another card which is the same as the USR2410. They also have a card w/ part number WL11000 and their utilities are by far the best of all the ones i've tried. use the teletronics WL1100 drivers and utility instead of the crap that USR supplies. The teletronics utility has all kinds of stuff the others don't have like site survey, link test, an AP browser (great, it's like a poor man's netstumbler since you can't use netstumbler w/ Prism cards). you can even change your MAC addr from it. XLNT mon! __________________ ~lincomatic Last edited by lincomatic : 06-03-2002 at 12:15 PM.

06-03-2002	#8 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	just played w/ the teletronics site survey util. man it's great...scans all the channels and shows the signal strength so you can use it to figure out which channel is best for your current location. weird thing is it scans all the way up to channel 14! i looked into the "about" tab, and for some weird reason it shows my USR card's region is Canada! __________________ ~lincomatic

06-03-2002	#10 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	btw i found thorn's link in another thread about prism cards w/ a built-in jack...he was recommending a teletronics card, and then i noticed that WL11000 on the teletronics site when i was browsing it. THANKS THORN! although all the drivers are beta for XP they work ok...except that they don't work w/ XP native configuration. you need to use the utils instead. (and no eject icon)..just pop the card out w/o stopping it and it's ok. __________________ ~lincomatic

06-03-2002	#11 (permalink)
Thorn Did you do the math? Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Villa Straylight Posts: 10,360	NP __________________ Thorn "Read Altas Shrugged. Compare it to today. Repeat as necessary"

06-03-2002	#12 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	found more info about the card @ the FCC. turns out Eumitcom is indeed the OEM. new info and FCC link at my updated page: http://www.geocities.com/lincomatic/usr2410.html GRR! downloaded chinese acrobat to see the schematic but they cut off the left half of 3 of the sheets. there are antenna select pins on one of the chips, but we can't see the part of the diagram w/ the antenna pads. wonder if we need to defeat the diversity circuitry when adding only 1 external antenna. __________________ ~lincomatic

06-06-2002	#13 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	ok, finally found a link (thanks to wardriving.com) that shows how to add the antenna connector. pretty complicated procedure. i couldn't see it except from google's cache, though...guerilla.net is down again. as i said in a prev post, the SMC card is the same as the USR2410. http://www.guerrilla.net/reference/8...mod/index.html __________________ ~lincomatic

06-13-2002	#14 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	seems like all the prism-based cards use the same crappy drivers in Windows. got a netgear card today for $30, and sure enough the drivers were from the same codebase as all the other prism cards i've tried. this one is not a eumitcom clone...quick check @ the FCC shows it's different. yet, the teletronics drivers work with it. it appears that the prism drivers are all interchangeable. does anyone know of a prism card which has drivers that work properly in XP (i.e. 1) enables the eject icon 2) shows up as a wireless lan card)? __________________ ~lincomatic

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