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The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => Network and WIreless Adapters => DWA-160 => Topic started by: Breach on January 26, 2010, 12:48:44 PM

Title: DWA-160 Rev. A2 - very poor performance
Post by: Breach on January 26, 2010, 12:48:44 PM

My DWA-160 has just arrived. It was meant to replace my TPLINK-951N PCI card which was disconnecting permanently. Guess what. The DWA doesn't disconnect (so far) but the performance is terrible - I use in conjunction with my DIR-655 on n mode and I get between 6.5 Mbps-11 Mbps... I did a little experiment - I plugged it into my laptop - (builtin Ralink n chip). With the laptop's card at 6 meters (direct line of sight) to the routher I'm always getting 100% signal strength. With the DWA-166 I'm getting -- 3 to 4 bars at best. Something is very wrong with this thing? Is DLINK support any help? Atheros lost me forever - does anyone know at least which chip model the DWA-160 is using so that I can try with generic drivers?

Title: Re: DWA-160 Rev. A2 - very poor performance
Post by: Breach on January 26, 2010, 02:43:28 PM

Well, guess what - there are NO generic drivers - only the OEM ones. Ai, ai...

Title: Re: DWA-160 Rev. A2 - very poor performance
Post by: lizzi555 on January 26, 2010, 08:59:24 PM

Yes, it is difficult to find drivers other than from D-Link.
Did you try the latest drivers ?

ftp://ftp.dlink.de/dwa/dwa-160/driver_software/DWA-160_drv_Rev-A_v1.60-S0054-20091228.zip (ftp://ftp.dlink.de/dwa/dwa-160/driver_software/DWA-160_drv_Rev-A_v1.60-S0054-20091228.zip)

My Rev A1 DWA shows good performance with it.
I just installed the drivers via device manager, not using setup and D-Link tool with Win7 and Vista.

Title: Re: DWA-160 Rev. A2 - very poor performance
Post by: Breach on January 27, 2010, 03:30:16 AM

Thanks for the link - updated to the latest ones - still no change in signal strength / speed...  :'(

Title: Re: DWA-160 Rev. A2 - very poor performance
Post by: geck222 on February 07, 2010, 08:23:45 AM

Im running the same Adapter and rev2 version, and im getting around the 200 mbps Mark with excellent (5ghz) and like 3 bars with 2.4ghz. My router is in the basement and my adapter is on the 2nd floor. The signal has to travel through almost 4 feet of flooring as well.

I find that changing the channels can increase the signal. I use channel 11 combined with using 802.11N ONLY.

Try setting your channel width to Auto 20/40. That allows speeds to be boosted up beyond 130mbps but it is very unstable for me. However since you are getting about 6 mbps it should hopefully push it past the 54mbps mark.