replace or fix my wifi?

[thechris]

current wifi cards:
MSI rt2500 based PC54G2. comes up as a rt2500 device in lspci

problems:
1.) cannot change rate from 1Mbps
2.) cannot chnage mode to Master

i got the last two of these from newegg.
i am sending back 2 peices of hardware (1 failed, 1 DOA) to newegg tomorrow. to save some shipping i am concidereing sending back the WIFI cards as well.

what wifi cards to get as a replacement? gentoo-wiki seems to like prism based cards, but doens't have a real list of the cards.

need a reliable PCI 802.11g card that works in linux and supports Master mode. any advice?
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HW problems. It's a VIA thing.

[UberLord]

Anything that supports Atheros or Intel chipsets has good solid native driver support in the 54M range.

If you never plan to use WPA then Prism54 is also a good choice - but as the Prism54 project appears to be dead, don't expect any future upates (like including WPA).

[thechris]

it seems that there is a LOT of advice on the chipset, but almost no advice on specific models. a simple google search shows this much. the people with the cards don't want to tell you what the card is, merely tell you what chipset to get. unfortunantly there is no easy way to find wifi cards by chipset at this time.

it seems there are a few major chipsets:

ralink 2500. i had one of these. did not like it. it is what i plan to replace. not sure if the kernel module supports becoming an AP or not, and thus i cannot justify another rt2500 card.

prism54 chipset. no longer made? depite having maybe 6 chipsets listed only 4 devices were listed of which only 1 was pci and said device did not work well and was not sold at newegg.

intel chipsets. don't seem to make a pci version of anything.

antheos chipsets. uses madwifi module but again, nothing is made using this chipset. any pci device is not sold at newegg at least.


the worst part is that you cannot visually identify most of the wifi cards becuase there is a large metal sheild over the components. furhter, picutes of the devices with exposed chipsets are too low in resolution to determine the specific chip.


i am thusly going to return the wifi cards for a refund and wait for new wifi cards to gain acceptance.
_________________
HW problems. It's a VIA thing.

[thechris]

update. i cannot return the msi cards. i am stuck with an unusable product.
_________________
HW problems. It's a VIA thing.

[UberLord]

[thechris]

i've just purchased an AT&T plug and share 6500g. the card is listed as antheos based.

the other choice for a card was the dlink ag520, but it seems only the version 1 cards used the antheos chipset, newer ones using the unsupported TI chipset.
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HW problems. It's a VIA thing.