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    5100 which wireless driver do I use?

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by passive101, Sep 2, 2007.

  1. passive101

    passive101 Notebook Deity

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    Acer's website lists 2 drivers. One is much larger then the other

    Description: Atheros Wireless LAN Driver v5.3.0.67

    Description: Atheros 802.11a+b+g Wireless Lan Driver v4.2.2.7



    The second one is much smaller. Do I need both of them? the laptop is getting a very poor signal and is running windows vista.
     
    passive101, Sep 2, 2007
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  2. Evolution

    Evolution Vox Sola

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    Atheros 802.11a+b+g Wireless Lan Driver v4.2.2.7 <--- this is the one I installed but if you do a windows update vista will download the latest wireless driver from microsoft which is much newer than the driver acer has provided. :)
     
    Evolution, Sep 2, 2007
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  3. passive101

    passive101 Notebook Deity

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    Would we get a better signal with the acer wifi software?

    What program is it that controls the wireless stuff? I'm not sure what to download for that from Acer.
     
    passive101, Sep 2, 2007
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  4. Evolution

    Evolution Vox Sola

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    The downloads you asked about are device drivers. Windows itself is what controls the wireless. Vista uses a service called "wlan autoconfig" to allow you to configure and connect to wireless points. Atheros has not released any wireless management software for the ar5005g wireless card that you have so you have to use the one built into vista itself. There is no acer software available for this process, you have to use the one built into windows.

    You wouldn't get any better a signal by using acer software because even if there was such software available it is still using the same physical hardware(wireless card) as vista's built in service is using. Perhaps you are getting a poor signal because you are trying to move too far away from the wireless point or your wireless transmitting hardware doesn't have a very far range...
     
    Evolution, Sep 2, 2007
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