GN-WMAG IEEE 802.11b/g Dual-Mode Wireless LAN Card User’s Manual http://www.gigabyte.com.tw Rev. 1.
Federal Communication Commission Interference Statement This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation. This equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to radio communications.
Contents CHAPTER 1. PRODUCT OVERVIEW 1-1. 1-2. 1-3. 1-4. 1-5. 1 INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................1 FEATURES .................................................................................................................1 PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS/PACKAGING .............................................................................1 LED INDICATING LIGHT ......................................................................
Chapter 1. Product Overview 1-1. Introduction This 802.11b/g Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) card is composed of the MAC, Baseband, and radio components, CARDBUS interface, and two built-in antennas. It operates in 2.4GHz frequency bands, providing fast (up to 108Mbps) and secure (support AES, 802.1x & WEP and WAP) connections to 802.11b and 802.11g networks from a single card.
1-4. LED Indicating Light This WLAN card conforms to the PC card Type II standard. There are six LED indicators, front two indicate currently Tx/Rx status, the other four show the receive signal strength from the linking Access Point. The LED display window shows the current condition of the receiver signals. It specifies the four conditions of “POOR”, “FAIR”, “GOOD”, and “EXCELLENT” receiver signals. It also provides additional information if the station is “SCANING”, “Rx ” or in “Tx ” mode.
Chapter 2. Installing the WLAN Card 2-1. Installing The Driver & Utility (Applicable to any supported OS) Step 1: Please make sure that you don’t plug your card yet. Step 2: Insert our setup CD into your CDROM drive, the following window will pop up. Step 3: Click “Install Wireless LAN Driver”. Step 4: Please remove the WLAN Card from your PCMCIA adapter and Click “OK”.
Step 5: Click “Finish”. Step 6: Please plug-in your “Gigabyte” WLAN card device ! and will install the device driver Click “OK”. Step 7: Click “Yes” , and then your installation is ok..
Chapter 3. Using The Utility The Configuration & Monitor Utility is a powerful application that helps you to configure the card and monitor the statistics of the communication link. Unlike the standard method of configuring the card via the operating system utilities (e.g. Control Panel), this application permits the dynamic modification of the configuration parameters while the card is operating. It also offers some more configuration options.
Figure 3-3. Current link status of the wireless LAN card If you want to turn off the card’s radio, click the radio icon at the bottom of the screen, Fig 3-4 shows the result Click “Yes” (see Figure 3-5). Just click it again to turn on the radio. Click “Yes” (see Figure 3-6). In order to exit, click the “X” button at the bottom of the screen. Figure 3-4.
Figure 3-5 Disabled WLAN Card. Figure 3-6 Enabled WLAN Card. Other items reports the following information: Association State: The field shows you if WLAN card is communicating with an access point or peer-to peer group. MAC Address: This card’s physical address. Channel [Freq]: The current channel and center frequency used by the WLAN card. Security: The current security setting. IP Address: WLAN Card IP Address. Profile: various wireless settings for different environments. SSID: Wireless network name.
Figure 3-7. Reachable access points and/or peer-to-peer stations Other items reports the following information: SSID: Wireless network name. BSSID: Basic service set identification. (Security): (Encrypt data) or not Signal Strength: It shows the received signal strength from the detected wireless device. Channel: The current channel number used by the WLAN card. Wireless Mode: 2.4GHz11Mbps(802.11b) or 2.4GHz54Mbps (802.11g) network. Refresh: Rescan the available network and then refresh the result. 3-3.
mode. The modes displayed have two values: “Ad Hoc” and “Access Point”. Figure 3-8. Configuration Ad Hoc channel: When the card’s network mode is set to Ad Hoc, you can select a channel from the AD Hoc channel drop-down menu for your Ad Hoc group to use. SSID: This is the wireless network name expressed as text string that all members within the same network share. Devices that don’t share the same network name cannot communicate with each other.
Figure 3-10. Advance configuration screen Power Saving: The card supports advanced power management to extend battery life. a. When set to “off ”: the card does not use the power saving mechanism. b. When set to “Normal ”: the card enters into sleep status when it is inactive and only wakes up periodically to receive some messages from the access point. c. When set to “Maximum ”: This case is similar to “Normal ”, but it draws less battery power as a result of less wake up frequently.
Figure 3-11 This card provides four security options: No security, WEP encryption, LEAP security and802.1x security architecture. 3-3-3-1. No security(Disabled): Allows the communication between the WLAN card and access point without data encryption. 3-3-3-2. Use WEP for authentication and encryption(Pro-Shared Keys): To prevent unauthorized user to access the data on wireless stations, the WLAN Card offers a secure data encryption, known as WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy).
4. 5. For 64-bit encryption, enter 10 digitals by Hex or 5 characters by ASCII. For 128-bit encryption, enter 26 digitals by Hex or 13 characters by ASCII. For 152-bit encryption, enter 32 digitals by Hex or 16 characters by ASCII. Select only a key to encrypt your transmission data. Click “OK” to save these settings. 3-3-3-3. Use Dynamic Security (Leap, 802.1X, etc.): 802.1X is an IEEE security standard for network security access control.
Figure 3-15. Authentication Screen 6. Click “Wireless Networks” tab (see Figure 3-16). Figure 3-16. Wireless Networks Screen 7. Click “Configure” button, then the following window will pop up (see Figure 3-17).
Figure 3-17. Wireless Networks Properties 8. Click “Data encryption (WEP enabled)” and “The key is provided for me automatically”. 9. Click “OK” twice to save these setting and exits the windows. 3-4. Statistics The “Statistics” tab shows you the number of packets sent and received by the card(see Figure 3-18). Figure 3-18.
3-5. Driver Info The “Driver Info” tab shows you the information of the card’s driver(see Figure 3-19). Figure 3-19.
Chapter 4. Specification 4-1. System Host Interface CARDBUS (32-bit) card Type II v7.1 Operating Voltage 3.3VDC ± 5% 4-2. RF Performance 802.11B Frequency Band 2412 ~ 24835 MHz (subject to local regulation) Modulation Technology DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) Modulation Techniques DBPSK, DQPSK, CCK Date Rates 11, 5.
