SparkLAN Communications 0685R04070 Wireless 11g Compact USB Adapter User Manual WL 211F

SparkLAN Communications, Inc. Wireless 11g Compact USB Adapter WL 211F

Users Manual

Wireless LAN 802.11g NIC Series Model No. WL-685XX Series WL-660XX Series WL-611XX Series WL-818XX Series User’s Guide Version 1.3
Copyright statement No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior writing of the publisher. MAY 2004 User’s Guide 1
Contents 1. Introduction __________________________________________________________________ 3 2. Wireless LAN Basics__________________________________________________________ 4 3. Installation for Windows platform _______________________________________________ 5 3.1. Installation Overview ____________________________________________________________6 3.2. Install Procedure for Windows XP________________________________________________7 3.3. Install Procedure for Windows 98/ME/2000 ______________________________________9 4. Configuration Utility __________________________________________________________ 17 4.1 Link Information _________________________________________________________________19 4.2 Availiable Networks / AP List ___________________________________________________21 4.3 Profile Setting ___________________________________________________________________22 4.4 About ___________________________________________________________________________26 5. Troubleshooting _____________________________________________________________ 27 6. Appendix____________________________________________________________________ 28 User’s Guide 2
1. Introduction Thank you for purchasing your Wireless LAN 802.11g Adapter. This Quick Installation Guide will assist you with the installation procedure. The package you have received should contain the following items: • Wireless LAN 802.11g Adapter • Quick Installation Guide • CD containing Wireless LAN Management utility, drivers and Multi-lingual User’s Guide Note: if anything is missing, please contact your vendor The CD contains drivers and Configuration Utility program that is used for managing the Wireless LAN Adapters and establishing the wireless connection with your Local Area Network. Note: This manual is valid for all Wireless LAN 11g Series products, such as PC Card, USB, mini-USB, PCI adapter, mini-PCI…etc. User’s Guide 3
2. Wireless LAN Basics Wireless LAN (Local Area Networks) systems offer a great number of advantages over a traditional, wired system. Wireless LANs (WLANs) are more flexible, easier to setup and manage and often more cost effective than their wired equivalence. Using radio frequency (RF) technology, WLANs transmit and receive data over the air, minimizing the need for wired connections. Thus, WLANs combine data connectivity with user mobility, and, through simplified configuration, enable movable LANs. With wireless LANs, users can access shared information without looking for a place to plug in and network managers can set up or augment networks without installing or moving wires. Wireless LANs offer the following productivity, convenience and cost advantages over traditional wired networks: • Mobility - Wireless LAN systems can provide LAN users with access to real-time information anywhere in their organization. This mobility supports productivity and service opportunities not possible with wired networks. • Installation Speed and Simplicity - Installing a wireless LAN system can be fast and easy and can eliminate the need to pull cable through walls and ceilings. • Installation Flexibility - Wireless technology allows the network to go where wires cannot go. • Reduced Cost-of-Ownership - While the initial investment required for wireless LAN hardware might be higher than the cost of wired LAN hardware, overall installation expenses and life-cycle costs will be significantly lower. Long-term cost benefits are greatest in dynamic environments requiring frequent moves, adds, and changes. • Scalability - Wireless LAN systems can be configured in a variety of topologies to meet the needs of specific applications and installations. Configurations are easily changed and range from peer-to-peer to full infrastructure networks, also allow roaming over a broad area. User’s Guide 4
3. Installation for Windows platform The following section will assist you in installing wireless LAN Adapter successfully. You will first install software (Utility) and then insert / attach the Wireless LAN Adapter to your system, and finally set the network properties to accommodate resource sharing and select the type of wireless network that you wish to install. The Wireless LAN card can easily be installed and used, without bothering to connect cables for keeping your computer to use network resources. User’s Guide 5
3.1. Installation Overview Here are some steps you will perform in establishing your wireless network connection: z Install the Access Point at first. AP is needed in case of Infrastructure network mode. z Install the software using the Install CD. z Install the Wireless LAN Card (WIRELESS LAN 802.11g Adapter). z Install the network protocol(s) required to communicate on your network. Most likely you will need the TCP/IP protocol. User’s Guide 6
3.2. Install Procedure for Windows XP Important Notice In order to make right use of WPA, please ensure that your current Wireless Adapter’s driver, and Wireless Utility can support it, WPA needs 802.1x authentication (when RADIUS mode is chosen), though the Operating System must also support 802.1x protocol. For Microsoft’s OS family, only Windows XP has incorporated this by default. The rest of the OS must installed 3er party’s client software such as Funk ODySSey. Note: Do not insert the WLAN Adapter until you are asked to do so, failure of which may result in unsuccessful installation of your WLAN device. 1. Insert the given Installation CD in the CD-ROM and then click on the Install Config Utilities. Follow the instruction to finish the installation. 2. Insert your WLAN card into PCMCIA/PCI slot or USB connector of your system, and then system will detect new hardware. Select “Install the software automatically (Recommended) ”, and then click Next to continue. User’s Guide 7
Once your system detected the driver, Microsoft will show a warning message as below. Click “ Continue Anyway ” for next step. After copy the file to your system, then the setup is finish. User’s Guide 8
3.3. Install Procedure for Windows 98/ME/2000 Note: Do not insert the WLAN Adapter until you are asked to do so, failure of which may result in unsuccessful installation of your WLAN device. Please follow the following steps one by one in order to install the WLAN Adapter successfully. 1. Power on your computer and allow Windows 98/ME/2000 to load fully. 2. Be sure that the Wireless LAN 802.11g Adapter is not inserted yet. 3. Insert the given Installation CD in the CD-ROM and then click on the Install Config Utilities. At the “ Welcome” window, click Next. User’s Guide 9
4. Accept the license agreement. Accept the license agreement. Click Yes to accept. Click Yes to finish the setup. User’s Guide 10
5. Insert / attach Wireless LAN 802.11g Adapter to your system Windows will recognize the WLAN adapter and auto detect the driver, if the system did not find the driver automatically, please install the driver manually. Click Yes to finish the installation. User’s Guide 11
6. Click the right button of mouse on My Computer Æ Properties Æ HardwareÆDevice Manager. Check whether it has WLAN adapter in one of the sockets or not. If you find Wireless Network PC Card in one of the sockets, it means the card is detected properly. 7. Click right button of mouse on the Network Neighborhood. User’s Guide 12
8. Select Properties from the pop up menu. For Windows 98 the network’s properties box appears. * For Windows ME and 2000, please select the Local Area Connection’s properties to check the following menu. 9. Click on the General tab and then click on the Install button. Select Network Component Type box appears. Click on the Protocol then click the Add button. User’s Guide 13
10. Select Network Protocols box appears. From the list of network protocols list, select NetBEUI, then click OK. 11. The NetBEUI protocol is now installed. After clicking on OK return back to Network Component Type box. 12. Repeat the step 9 and 10 to add IPX/SPX protocol. User’s Guide 14
13. Click on the TCP/IP option for setting the IP address for your computer. You can select either Obtain an IP address automatically or Use the following IP address setting. If your choice is the second one then enter the IP value, Subnet masking, DNS, Domain/ Workgroup name, and Gateway Address values. After setting these parameters appropriately, click OK to return to Network Component Type and you can select the File and Printer Sharing options as well for sharing your computers resources. Click on OK. 14. Screen message do want to restart your Computer will pop up. Select Yes. It will shut down your computer and restart. Important: In order to make sure that the changed values could take effect, please Restart your computer before continue. User’s Guide 15
Uninstall Procedure Step 1: If you want to uninstall the WLAN adapter, just simply click Start Menu Æ Program Æ Wireless Network Æ Uninstall, it shall uninstall all related programs. Step 2: Restart your Computer. User’s Guide 16
4. Configuration Utility Wireless LAN 802.11g Wireless LAN adapter uses its own management software. All functions controlled by user are provided by this application. Usually this application starts automatically, or click icon from Start Menu to start the Utility application. A new icon - should appear in your Icon tray. If the icon is in red, it means that Wireless LAN 802.11g NIC configuration is invalid or incomplete. Sometimes icon can be colored in yellow. This may happen when communication is defined poor connection or incorrectly. Figure 1 Icon tray with a new icon User’s Guide 17
User can navigate through “sheets”, by clicking tabs. “X” button will minimize window. To provide more information, click “More…” button. Below description explains the use and meanings of the various screen messages. User’s Guide 18
4.1 Link Information - Connected To Network - - This field is used to display the current status of connection. When the state shows “Connected to Network“ means normal flow of operation in Infrastructure mode. The PC is connected to access point. Networking is available. A state of “Scanning” means that the node is searching for available access point and detecting the SSID for an available access point within range. This field will also display an error message for some reason if the driver fails to initialize. Network Type Infrastructure Mode - The driver will scan all available channels continuously until it finds one or more Access Points that match its SSID. At that point it will try and authenticate and associate with the Access Point. Peer to Peer Mode - The driver will scan for 5 seconds looking for an existing Ad Hoc network using the same SSID. - Current Channel and Transmit Rate User’s Guide 19
Shows the channel of the radio and transmit rate being currently used for an active connection. This value has no meaning when the radio is “Scanning” - Link Quality The Link Quality bar graph is only active when the node is in Infrastructure Mode. The bar graph displays the quality of the link between the node and Access Point. - Signal Strength The Signal Strength bar graph is only active when the node is in Infrastructure Mode. The bar graph displays normalized signal strength as reported by the radio, averaged over all frames over 100 bytes long that are received from the Access Point. User’s Guide 20
4.2 Availiable Networks / AP List The Connections Tab shows current status of available APs within the network. User may select profile or ESSID from above list, click “Connect” to connect with the AP. Click “Refresh” to rescan the network, this utility with site survey function, it will detect and list all available AP’s within network. . User’s Guide 21
4.3 Profile Setting Profile Setting allows user to create profiles for different network environments. Click “Add” button to create new profiles. “Edit” for editing current exist profile. Click “Delete” button if you wish to delete profiles. - Network Type This field allows you to select from a list of supported Network “Modes”. The modes displayed will have two values: “Peer to Peer” and “Access Point”. Peer to Peer - This is the 802.11g peer-to-peer mode of operation. In 802.11g Ad Hoc, only one wireless “cell” is supported for each different SSID. All communication is done from Client to Client without the use of an Access Point. 802.11g Ad Hoc networking uses the same SSID for establishing the wireless connection. User’s Guide 22
Access Point - This mode of operation requires the presence of an 802.11g / 802.11b Access Point. All communication is done via the Access Point, which relays packets to other wireless Clients in the BSS as well as to nodes on a wired network such as Ethernet. Transmit Rate – The transmission rate at which client of AP transmits the data packets. You may set this to fixed 1Mbps, fixed 2 Mbps, fixed 5.5 Mbps, fixed 11 Mbps or Automatic for 802.11b’s AP and fixed 6Mbps, fixed 9Mbps, fixed 12Mbps, fixed 18Mbps, fixed 24Mbps, fixed 36Mbps, fixed 48Mbps, fixed 54Mbps or Automatic for 802.11g’s AP. Encryption (WEP) - You may desire an additional measure of security on your wireless network, which can be achieved by using WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) encryption and WPA pre-shared key. User’s Guide 23
When an encrypted frame is received it will only be accepted if it decrypts correctly. This will only happen if the receiver has the WEP Key used by the transmitter. This panel allows to entry for 64/128-bit encryption according to WEP function select. To be written to the driver and registry, such as Hexadecimal format, each key must consist of hex digits, which means that only digit 0-9 and letters A-F are valid entries. If entered incorrectly program will not write keys to a driver. WPA pre-shared key is one advanced security for wireless network. There are 2 types algorithm could be supported – one is TKIP, and the other is AES. To use WPA Pre-Shared Key, enter a password in the WPA Shared Key field between 8 and 63 characters long. User’s Guide 24
To enable the used of IP Setting, please select enable. The main purpose to make used of this function is to properly configure the TCP/IP setting of each wireless connection. Please define if the current Profile IP setting will be assign by a DHCP Server or just assign by a fixed IP that is determinate by the Network Administrator. When the DHCP Status is Enable, the TCP/IP information will be assigned by a DHCP Server. Or otherwise please fill up with the correspondence data of the IP settings. User’s Guide 25
4.4 About “About” tab shows the product version including the detail of Driver, Application and firmware versions. Users must use this version number when reporting their problems to technical support. User’s Guide 26
5. Troubleshooting If you encounter any problems during the installation, or to confirm that the WLAN 11Mbps device is installed properly, please read the following troubleshooting section. In Windows 98: To check that the WLAN 802.11g device is installed properly, please do the following: 1. Go to START>SETTINGS>CONTROL PANEL>NETWORK. Choose the Configuration Tab. If you find the WLAN 802.11g Adapter, it means the card is installed properly. If you see the Yellow Question-mark (?) means the resources are conflicting. (Please read further in this section for solutions.) -or- 2. Right click on My Computer and select Properties. Select the Device Manager and click on the Network Adapter. You will find the WLAN 802.11g Adapter if it is installed successfully. If you see the Yellow sign, the resources are conflicting. Click on the PCMCIA Card and then on the PCMCIA Card Service, you can see the status of the PC card. If there is a yellow sign either on the adapter or the PC card, please check the following. 1. Check to see if your computer has a free IRQ. If not, make an IRQ free by assigning the same IRQ to some devices, for example COM 1; COM 2 can be assigned the same IRQ values. 2. Check that you have inserted the right card and have installed the proper driver. In Windows 2000: 1. Check the Windows 2000 Diagnostics. See if there is any conflict in the resource allocation or the I/O Address, IRQ allocations. If you find that the IRQ or I/O Addresses are already assigned to some other devices, you must change that value. I/O Address needs 40h byte length. 2. Go to the Control panel. Double click on the PCMCIA Card and you will see WLAN Adapter. Double clicking on that will show you the Card Information, driver name and the driver file. If you do not find the names, there are some problems and the driver is not installed properly. Reinstall the driver. Note: Check the PnP BIOS setup menu and select no in case of the WLAN Adapter installation. User’s Guide 27
6. Appendix 6.1 Using WinXP Wireless Zero configuration for WPA setup Step1: Check and make sure that the Wireless Zero Configuration service is running. Click Start Æ Settings Æ Control Panel Æ Administrative Tools Æ Services Since WPA security standard has been defined after Windows XP lunch date, then you should also update your current Wireless Zero Configuration utility version to the latest. In order to do so, you must run the patch file which be included the CD or please visit the following website for download it. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&familyid=009D8425-CE2B-47A4-ABEC-274845DC9E91 Once the above steps are complete, please proceed to the following page.User’s Guide 28
Step2: Open the Wireless utility Click Advanced and the following screen will appear. Over the WPA wireless Network, click Configure. User’s Guide 29
Step3: Verify that the Network Authentication is WPA and the Data encryption is TKIP or AES. (The encryption type should match the WPA setting of your Access Point.) Step4: Click Authentication tab to select EAP type. (The EAP type should match the authentication server before access the authenticated network.) After clicking OK, the Wireless workstation will be able to associate with the AP previously get authenticated by an authentication Server. User’s Guide 30
User’s Guide 31Federal 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. However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur 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 of the following measures: - Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna. - Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver. - Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected. - Consult the dealer or an experienced radio/TV technician for help. FCC Caution: To assure continued compliance, any changes or modifications not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance could void the user's authority to operate this equipment. This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation. SparkLAN declares that WL-685XX series , WL-660XX series ,WL-611XX series , WL-818XX series is limited in CH1~CH11 by specified firmware controlled in U.S.A. IMPORTANT NOTE: FCC Radiation Exposure Statement: This equipment complies with FCC radiation exposure limits set forth for an uncontrolled environment. This equipment should be installed and operated with minimum distance 20cm between the radiator & your body. This transmitter must not be co-located or operating in conjunction with any other antenna or transmitter.

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