How can I determine which underlying chip a wireless adapter uses?

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I'm having trouble with my wireless adapter, at the heart of which there's a Ralink RT2760 chip for which I keep getting hardware errors. Now, it could be that it's just my specific adapter, but I'd like to try getting an adapter using a non-Ralink chip. Problem is, when I search for cards, even if I find specs - I don't find which chip they use under the hood (example, and also here).

Is there something I can do, other than buying the adapters, to determine what chips they use?

einpoklum

Posted 2016-09-28T09:02:22.090

Reputation: 5 032

Knowing the errors that you receive would help indiciate whether it is actually a hardware fault, or whether there is a configuration, driver or OS problem, rather than the immediate assumption it's the chip at fault... – Kinnectus – 2016-09-28T09:23:38.913

2@BigChris: I might ask a different question about that specifically. This one is "as stated in the title" and I mentioned the errors strictly as motivation. – einpoklum – 2016-09-28T09:59:33.590

Answers

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I can think of two things that you could do in this situation:

  • Ask the manufacturer or vendor, e.g. via their support channel.
  • Download the driver for the adapter and take a close look. You should be able to make out the PCI vendor and device IDs by examining the .INF file (in a Windows driver). With that information, you can go ahead and search for these IDs in the http://www.devicekb.com/drivers and that should tell you exactly what chip is built in the card.

I downloaded the driver from your first link and it seems that the wireless chip used in that card is an Atheros (Vendor 168C, Device 0030), so you could go ahead and buy that one.

Nassbirne

Posted 2016-09-28T09:02:22.090

Reputation: 1 049

I'm guessing those hexadecimal numbers you're mentioning are Windows-specific? Anyway, thanks. – einpoklum – 2016-09-28T09:39:08.143

3

No, they are the PCI vendor and device IDs. They can be looked up in the http://pcidatabase.com/.

– Nassbirne – 2016-09-28T09:40:38.710

Asked: 2016-09-28T09:02:22.090

Viewed: 148 times

Active: 2018-10-06T16:57:30.020