Asus WL-169GE, User Manual

Page 1: ...User Manual Wireless Local Area Network Card WL 169gE For 802 11g 802 11b Wireless Networks E 2358 Dec 2005 802 11g Broad Range ...

Page 2: ... HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES ARISING FROM ANY DEFECT OR ERROR IN THIS MANUAL OR PRODUCT Product warranty or service will not be extended if 1 the product is repaired modified or altered unless such repair modification of alteration is authorized in writing by ASUS or 2 the serial number of the product is defaced or missing Products and corporate names appearing in this manual...

Page 3: ...SA General fax 1 510 608 4555 Web site address usa asus com Technical support General support tel 1 502 995 0883 Online support http support asus com Notebook tel 1 510 739 3777 x5110 Support fax 1 502 933 8713 ASUS COMPUTER GmbH Germany Austria Company address Harkort Str 25 D 40880 Ratingen Germany General tel 49 2102 95990 Web site address www asuscom de General fax 49 2102 959911 Online contac...

Page 4: ... Infrastructure 10 Configuring with the WLAN utility Ad Hoc 11 3 Software Reference 12 ASUS WLAN Control Center 12 Wireless Settings Utility 14 Status Status 14 Status Connection 16 Status IP Config 17 Status Ping 17 Config Basic 18 Config Advanced 19 Config Encryption 21 Config Authentication 24 Survey Site Survey 24 About Version Info 25 Link State 26 Exit Wireless Settings 26 Windows XP Wireless Opti...

Page 5: ... ASUS WLAN Card supports data rates up to 11 Mbps with automatic fallback to 5 5 2 and 1 Mbps in 802 11b networks It operates in the unlicensed 2 4 GHz frequencies called the Instrumentation Science and Medical ISM band Unlicensed means free of charge to users The ASUS WLAN Card configuration utility is a user friendly application that helps you quickly setup multiple roaming nodes using the ASUS W...

Page 6: ...y item is damaged or missing ASUS USB Wireless LAN Adapter WL 169gE USB 2 0 extension cable type A to type A Neck lace Support CD Quick Start Guide USB 2 0 Extension cable Neck lace Neck strap quick release USB Wireless LAN adapter with USB cap Features USB 2 0 USB bus powered OFDM DSSS Supports Infrastructure and Ad hoc networks Compatible with IEEE 802 11b and 802 11g devices ...

Page 7: ...e WLAN utilities and driver Follow these instructions to install the WLAN card utilities and driver Insert the support CD into your optical drive If autorun is enabled in your computer the CD automatically displays the utility menu Click Install ASUS WLAN Card Utilities Driver If autorun is disabled double click SETUP EXE in the root directory of the CD 2 Click Next on the Welcome screen 1 Select ...

Page 8: ... for the first time during Windows restart you are asked to choose one utility to configure the WLAN Card Select Only use our WLAN utilities and disable Windows wireless function Reading the WLAN status indicators The device comes with a LED that inidicates the status of the WLAN Card Blinking Searching for or connected to an AP OFF No wireless connection LED 5 The installation process takes severa...

Page 9: ...he IP address for the WLAN card 4 Choose to obtain an IP address or to assign static address manually for your WLAN card When IP setting is complete click Finish to exit the One Touch Wizard Note If the access point you want to connect has set up encryption policies you must configure the same encryption on your WLAN Card Select Configure your wireless LAN settings radio button in step 2 and make t...

Page 10: ...us page to see the association state If connection is established the box shows Connected xx xx xx xx xx xx 3 Use Site Survey if you donʼt know the SSID of your access point s 4 Encryption settings must match those at the access point Ask your network administrator about settings if necessary Click Apply to activate your settings 1 Right click the wireless connection icon and select Wireless Setti...

Page 11: ...Click the Survey button to scan for the Ad Hoc nodes Select the node you want to communicate with and press Connect 4 If the encryption settings of your WLAN Card are different from those of the other Ad Hoc nodes you are prompted to make the encryption of the two nodes identical Click Apply to activate the settings 1 Right click the wireless connection icon and select Wireless Settings 5 Check th...

Page 12: ...ructure Not linked but connected to Internet Infrastructure Excellent link quality but not connected to Internet Infrastructure Good link quality but not connected to Internet Infrastructure Fair link quality but not connected to Internet Infrastructure Poor link quality but not connected to Internet Infrastructure Not linked and not connected to Internet Infrastructure ASUS WLAN Control Center AS...

Page 13: ...s Settings Double click the taskbar icon to launch the Wireless Settings utility Taskbar Icon Right click Menu Right click the taskbar icon to show the following menu items Wireless Settings Launches Wireless Settings application Activate Configuration Allows you to choose a preset profile Mobile Manager Launches Mobile Manager application Site Monitor Launches the Site Monitor application Preferenc...

Page 14: ... Ad Hoc network ASUS Wireless Settings Utility Wireless Settings is an application for controling the WLAN Card Use Wireless Settings to view or modify the configuration settings and monitor the operational status of your WLAN Card When Wireless Settings is launched you can see the tabbed property sheets which categorize the configuration options into groups Starting Wireless Settings Open the Windo...

Page 15: ...rd is currently tuned This number changes as the radio scans the available channels Current Data Rate Displays the current data rate in megabits per second Mbps Radio State Shows the wireless radio status ON or OFF Radio On When the wireless radio is turned ON the icon on the right appears in the upper left of the Status page Radio Off When the wireless radio is turned OFF the icon on the right ap...

Page 16: ...you want to connect to a specified AP using a particular profile Status Connection You can view the current link statistics about the WLAN Card These statistics are updated once per second and are valid if the WLAN Card is correctly installed Frame Sent Received Transmitted The number of frames that were transmitted Received The number of frames that were received Frame Error Transmitted The number...

Page 17: ...on the WLAN Card which gets IP address from DHCP server Status Ping Click the Ping button in Status IP Config tab to open this page The Ping tab allows you to verify the accessibility of other computers or network devices To ping a connection 1 Type the IP address of the device you want to verify in the IPAddress field 2 Configure the ping session by assigning the ping packet size and number of pack...

Page 18: ...signating the SSID you are only to connect the AP with the SSID you assigned If the AP is removed from the network your WLAN Card does not roam automatically to other APs SSIDs must all be printable characters and having a maximum of 32 case sensitive characters such as Wireless NOTE Set the SSID to a null string if you wish to allow your station to connect to any Access Point it can find But you c...

Page 19: ...s you to set up additional parameters for the wireless card We recommend using the default values for all items in this window RTS Threshold 0 2347 The RTS CTS Request to Send Clear to Send function is used to minimize collisions among wireless stations When RTS CTS is enabled the router refrains from sending a data frame until another RTS CTS handshake is completed Enable RTS CTS by setting a spe...

Page 20: ...ng their own IBSS network The default ad hoc mode is 802 11b only 54g LRS Limited Rate Support is used to communicate with older 11b clients that only support 4 rates But 54g cards can still use all 12 rates 54g Auto support both 802 11b and 802 11g adapters 54g Only will support ONLY high performance 54g adapters All of these modes only pertain to when the STA is creating their own IBSS network 5...

Page 21: ...the access point WPA PSK WPA2 PSK Select this option to enable WPA Pre Shared Key under Infrastructure mode It enables communication between your client and APs using WPA PSK WPA2 PSK encryption mode WPA WPA2 The network is operating in IEEE 802 1x authentication mode This mode is for environments with RADIUS Remote Access Dial in User Service In a RADIUS environment various Extensible Authenticat...

Page 22: ...Wireless Network Key This option is enabled only if you select WPA PSK or WPA2 PSK authentication mode Select TKIP or AES in the encryption filed as encryption mode to begin the encryption proceed Note 8 to 64 characters are required in this field Wireless Network Key WEP This option is configurable only if you enable WEP in Network Authentication field The WEP Key is a 64 bits 5 byte or 128 bits 13 b...

Page 23: ...eys 64 128bits versus 40 104bits There are two levels of WEP Encryption 64 bits and 128 bits Firstly 64 bit WEP and 40 bit WEP are the same encryption method and can interoperate in the wireless network This lower level of WEP encryption uses a 40 bit 10 Hex character as a secret key set by user and a 24 bit Initialization Vector not under user control This together makes 64 bits 40 24 Some vendor...

Page 24: ...resides at the network operations center TLS Smart Card TLS Transport Layer Security authentication is used to create an encrypted tunnel and achieve server side authentication in a manner similar to Web server authentication using Secure Sockets Layer SSL protocol This method uses digital certificates to verify the identity of a client and server TTLS TTLS authentication uses certificates to authen...

Page 25: ...ining which network to associate to The value is then normalized to a dBm value Encryption Wireless network encryption information All devices in the network should use the same encryption method to ensure the communication BSSID The media access control MAC address of the access point or the Basic Service Set ID of the Ad Hoc node MAC address of the Access Point or the Basic Service Set ID of the...

Page 26: ...the left side of the WLAN Card Settings Use the icon to view the current signal status Exit Wireless Settings To exit Wireless Settings you can click OK or Cancel Excellent Link Quality Infrastructure Good Link Quality Infrastructure Fair Link Quality Infrastructure Poor Link Quality Infrastructure Not linked Infrastructure ...

Page 27: ...y useASUS WLAN utilities to configure the WLAN Card recommended You can open the Wireless Option setting window at any time by left clicking the control center icon and choosing Wireless Option Taskbar Left Click Menu Configuring with Windows Wireless Zero Configuration service If you want to configure your WLAN Card via Windows Wireless Zero Configuration WZC service follow the instruction below to m...

Page 28: ...een bars with 5 bars indicating excellent signal and 1 bar meaning poor signal 2 Select Wireless Networks tab to show Preferred networks Use the Add button to add the SSID of available networks and set the connection preference order with the Move up and Move down buttons The radio tower with a signal icon identifies the currently connected access point Click Properties to set the authentication o...

Page 29: ... an icon of an expansion card There should not be a or problem or x disabled symbol over this icon There is a yellow exclamation mark or a yellow question mark in Device Manager in front of my WLAN Card To resolve the problem you should update reinstall the WLAN Card driver In Device Manager right click 802 11g Network Adapter select Properties and select Driver tab Click on Update Driver button t...

Page 30: ...P Keys on both stations Bad link quality or bad signal strength There are two possible reasons First is radio interference keep the environment around the WLAN Card away from microwave ovens and large metal objects Then try to reorient the WLAN Card antenna Second is the distance decrease the distance between your WLAN Card and the Access Point or station or another WLAN Card The TCP IP protocol d...

Page 31: ...tances of the same physical layer with an acceptably low frame error ratio due to mutual interference Client A client is the desktop or mobile PC that is connected to your network COFDM for 802 11a or 802 11g Signal power alone is not enough to maintain 802 11b like distances in an 802 11a g environment To compensate a new physical layer encoding technology was designed that departs from the tradi...

Page 32: ...ted using the Pass Phrase is compatible with other WLAN products The Pass Phrase option is not as secure as manual assignment Device Name Also known as DHCP client ID or network name Sometimes provided by an ISP when using DHCP to assign addresses DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol This protocol allows a computer or many computers on your network to be automatically assigned a single IP addre...

Page 33: ... user The wireless device uses a constant chip rate of 11Mchips s for all data rates but uses different modulation schemes to encode more bits per chip at the higher data rates The wireless device is capable of an 11 Mbps data transmission rate but the coverage area is less than a 1 or 2 Mbps wireless device since coverage area decreases as bandwidth increases Encryption This provides wireless dat...

Page 34: ...or 802 5 the specification for token ring networks 802 11 defines the standard for wireless LANs encompassing three incompatible non interoperable technologies Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum FHSS Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum DSSS and Infrared 802 11 specifies a carrier sense media access control and physical layer specifications for 1 and 2 Mbps wireless LANs IEEE 802 11a 54Mbits sec Compared w...

Page 35: ...less devices operating in the 2 4 GHz frequency band This standard includes provisions for three radio technologies direct sequence spread spectrum frequency hopping spread spectrum and infrared Devices that comply with the 802 11 standard operate at a data rate of either 1 or 2 Mbps In 1999 the IEEE created the 802 11b standard 802 11b is essentially identical to the 802 11 standard except 802 11...

Page 36: ...that provides access to the Internet Small ISPs provide service via modem and ISDN while the larger ones also offer private line hookups T1 fractional T1 etc LAN Local Area Network A communications network that serves users within a defined geographical area The benefits include the sharing of Internet access files and equipment like printers and storage devices Special network cabling 10 Base T is...

Page 37: ...z Hz equivalent to the older unit of cycles per second One megahertz MHz is one million Hertz One gigahertz GHz is one billion Hertz The standard US electrical power frequency is 60 Hz the AM broadcast radio frequency band is 0 55 1 6 MHz the FM broadcast radio frequency band is 88 108 MHz and wireless 802 11 LANs operate at 2 4 GHz SSID Service Set Identifier SSID is a group name shared by every m...

Page 38: ...PA encompasses TKIP Temporal Key Integrity Protocol along with MIC Message Integrity Check and other fixes to WEP such as Weak IV Initialization Vector filtering and Random IV generation TKIP uses 802 1x to deploy and change temporary keys as opposed to static WEP keys once used in the past It is a significant improvement over WEP WPA is part of a complete security solution WPA also requires authent...

Page 39: ... in a particular installation If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver Connect the equipment into...

Page 40: ...nducted These are considered relevant and sufficient Effective use of the radio spectrum Article 3 2 Testing for radio test suites according to EN 300 328 2 has been conducted These are considered relevant and sufficient CE Mark Warning This is a Class B product in a domestic environment this product may cause radio interference in which case the user may be required to take adequate measures Declar...