Killer Mod

If the 1103 is an AR9380, does that mean you can install the killer driver and software onto the AR9380? Does that also mean you can get a cheap AR9380 and turn it into the 1103?

 

moral hazard,

you can give it a shot! But why killers adapters are Killers - because of a custom firmware they put in their products which allows to run a specific software. would love to hear the results, but i'm 99.8% sure it's not gonna work)

 

Sorry to tell you this but make that 0%

I am currently using a AR5BHB112 (AR9380) force installed with a modified Bigfoot Killer 1103 driver. bought it for $20, works perfectly.

 

Don't leave it there! Are you saying you found a $20 card (where?) which can be reflashed (how?) with the Killer firmware (where did you get that?) Or are you saying that there is no special firmware and the secret sauce is the Killer driver which can be hacked to recognize a different PCI ID card? (I guess that's not terribly hard)

 

Don't mean to be post off topic thing in this thread, but ^^^ find the ID of the card you want to use, find Killer's driver package, edit, save, boom.


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Killer-N 1103 is simply a the same card as Atheros AR5BHB112 / AR9380 with a custom software layer. you can buy a used AR5BHB112 / AR9380 for about 15-20$ these days online. (eBay or whatever you guys have in your country).

you can install the slightly older bigfoot drivers ontop and force windows to recognize it as Killer-N 1103, tho you do need a modified driver for this, I simply downloaded mine off someone who has the tech-know-hows.

as you can see from the screenshot, I'm using this on my Desktop computer atm (dell drivers does not allow you to install it on anything that is non-dell)

if you need me to point you to the modified driver download location, let me know, since I need to look for them again.

 

hi arterius2,

could you provide a link to download the modded Killer 1103 for AR5BHB112 as well? thanks

 

Wow this is some interesting stuff ..!! Oh god

 

Nice you confirmed what I thought would be the case.

AR9380 it is for me!

 

I had been doing this with bluetooth drivers for years

Never thought to try it with network cards, but then again I was never interested in adding any fluff to my wired/wireless drivers the standard stuff works really well for me.

 

Does anyone have a link to the custom driver/modded driver?

I'm going to be purchasing this and modding it to a Killer WiFi card hehe.

 

I'm not very tech-savvy so I take it if we buy this card and use modified drivers, the system will recognize it as the Killer-1103 and allow for the software enhancements/advantages? But what if we simply get the card and use say default drivers or Atheros drivers, would that decrease function, not work at all or have the same level of function as a 1103 but without all the extra software bonuses?

I'm about to pick up a NP9130 but was hoping to upgrade the wifi card myself as the resellers here in Australia charge quite a bit more for the upgrades. So thanks for the help!

 

Man I hate it when people show that something can be done without telling you how to do it or providing any references. Its like they want to take the credit and they want the mod all to themselves.

 

It won't be very hard to do.

Just put the device ID of the AR5BHB112 into the inf file of the Killer driver.

Once I receive my AR5BHB112 I will give it a go and upload the modified inf here.

 

Thanks iaTa, that would be extremely helpful!

 

I hope all of this Killer Mod isn't just Vaporware! Will we have to flash a custom firmware to the AR5BHB112? Where can the firmware be downloaded? How about the modded drivers?

 

he obviously made a thread by mistake, notice his title and reply to the quote hehe

 

I think that's my mistake, I asked a question in a FS thread. And he quoted the guy who answered me. But because it's kind of off topic for a FS thread maybe a mod made it into a new thread to tidy up the FS thread.

 

So you can fool the driver software into thinking it's the correct hardware, however, isn't the real magic actually what's programmed into the microprocessor? To make this a 100% killer clone, would not the embedded microprocessor have to be reprogrammed too?

 

The hardware is identical - the "magic" is all in the drivers/software.

Ironically there are quite a few Alienware owners that are using the Atheros drivers as they have no lag spikes like they do with the Killer drivers.

 

I was wondering about that too. killer wifi cards suck. and their drivers even more.
this mod would be more like a downgrade.

but the principle is great. I use it all the time on linux and sometimes on windows. very usefull for wifi hacking.

and I never thought about using it for bluetooth? what do you use it for?

 

Hmm what's this now Killer cards sucking? I thought lots of review sites really liked them. What is NBR's general consensus on Intel 6300 vs Killer 1103?

 

Killer wifi cards suck? For a start they are Qualcomm cards, not Killer.

Plus have a look at this review as it beats the Intel 6300 in nearly every test:

Killer Wireless-N 1103 Review: Can Qualcomm Take On Centrino? : Killer Wireless: Is It Able To Usurp Intel's Centrino?

 

That's what I'm talking about. I think Anandtech liked them too.

 

The Killer WiFi cards are Qualcomm-Atheros reference models with a special firmware/driver combo. The 1103 is the AR9380 half-height and the 1102 is the AR9382. Almost everything about Killer changed when Qualcomm bought them. The only thing that is the same is that they still use proprietary drivers.

Also, nothing really sucks about the hardware. It's actually pretty great. Plus with Killer's driver/FW combo it usually handily beats Intel at several things.

Speaking from experience as all my notebooks now have AR9380 cards in them.

 

There is no special firmware, it's purely drivers.

 

for some reason killer cards reminds me monster cables. at least in wired gigabyte adapters.
the killer wifi drivers are actually worse then the standard ones. that's quite an achievement...

 

Are the killer drivers really that bad?

Are there any benchmarks between using the killer drivers and software and using the standard atheros drivers and windows networking software?

 

Many hardware devices get their firmware uploaded from the driver. Firmware is the software running on the device itself while a driver is the software on the computer interfacing with the device.

 

There are. I don't remember where I saw it. But benchmark shouldn't be the only thing to evaluate. It doesn't matter how fast it is if the connection keeps dropping. Anyway in this case the speed is slower.
It's not like it's really really bad. They are just worse then the Atheros and have some bugs.

 

So even if I don't use the killer drivers, ie. if I were to pick up the AR9380 and just use Atheros drivers, the hardware alone would be sufficient for a better wifi experience than standard (comes with Sager/Clevo) wifi cards?

If so, that would be terrific.

 

On that same note, is the AR9380 with its basic drivers better than theIntel 6300?

 

Read the quote below.

Exactly the way it works.

I'm not entirely sure that's the Killer drivers doing that, and furthermore it's not nearly as serious or frequent even when it does happen.

I also think that associating Killer with Monster is flat out wrong. The two could MAYBE be compared several years ago in the "price:value" ratio, but as of the last 2 years they've been extremely competitive on price and performance.

IMO, yes.

Speed is arguably better on the AR9380, but range is definitely better.

 

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering too. Because so many people seem to suggest the Intel 6300 is THE best card. But after looking at some of those benchmarks, especially if you look at 5Ghz performance, it is clearly not.

 

yes. it works great with Atheros drivers and it will be better then standard cards. but that's easy because standard cards are below average.

but don't forget you are paying for the killer brand. it's like a mac. really not worth it. you can get better at a lower price.

 

Show me a driver that updates a hardware devices firmware.

 

All wireless cards do it. And it's not so much updating it every time the driver is loaded, it's a firmware that comes with the driver that the driver will load onto the hardware at boot.

Maybe you've heard of NDISWrapper on Linux? That takes not only the Windows driver, but also the proprietary firmware that comes with that driver. My point is all OS's do it... Windows/OSX/Linux/Android/etc...

 

Well, I don't plan on picking up the Killer branded AR9380. I'll just be picking up the generic Atheros one for around $30 on ebay instead but was worried about drivers and such. But if it works great even on generic drivers, I'm all set I think.

 

Yeah I think I'll do the the same. This should be fun.

 

The stock Atheros drivers with Windows 7 managing wireless is flawless. (Or has been for me...)

 

Terrific! That's awesome to hear, thanks for that!

 

Blah Blah Blah, and yet and still nobody has provided modded killer drivers! I can't wait until my AR9380 arrives, I will mod the killer 1103 drivers myself!

 

I've tried it and it was a no-go. But those were the drivers from Killer's site. I couldn't deconstruct them enough to get the inf out. That included pulling decompressed parts of the driver installer out of the %TEMP% folder.

 

Looks like no one is going to play nice and share. It would be nice to at least get a PM...

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I don't know nearly enough to even begin to understand what modding drivers requires. I'm also hoping that someone will be kind enough to post them but maybe it's not as simple as we thought? Regardless, I'll still be grabbing one of these and just using the stock drivers to begin with at least.

 

For all we know, arterius2 maybe a lying noob troll! I noticed he didn't offer to email the driver he has to any one, or share it from an ftp! If he really has a modded driver from someone surely he will have a zip file of it! Would be dumb to install it and not have a copy of it somewhere!

 

If I can modify them I'll need someone else to test them. I have the XB112, not the HB112. Mine is the full height card.

I HAVE managed to extract the Killer driver INF and I'm looking over what needs to be changed, for those interested...

Killer 110x INF Win7 X64 - Pastebin.com

 

I will be willing to try it out next week when my laptop comed back from the Repair Depot snd when my Atheros HB112 arrives in the mail

 

Which line needs to be modified for the device id for our reference cards?

 

HP Atheros AR5BHB112 AR9380 a/b/g/n Half PCI-E Card 630435-001 629859-001 450M | eBay

Would this be the correct card for a Sager NP9130 laptop? I'm pretty sure it is but I just want to make sure.

Thanks!