HOW TO : Mod ASUS WL-167G for External Antenna

[l0renz0]

Credits to Tobias 'grondhal' Hain and ronobvious whose articles have greatly helped me in modding my ASUS WL-167G (RT73 driver) wireless adapter.

You can take a look on their in-depth guides at the following links

http://www.oberkommando.org/asus_wl-167g/
http://ronobvious.livejournal.com/296.html

However, pls note that their mods are based on the version 1 make. Hence, I hope I could help those who are using the V2 R1.01 version, which pretty much looks like this before the mod :

http://mistrzowie.republika.pl/wl-167g%200042.JPG

And my end product after the mod...

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne...0517826&size=o

Firstly, remove some copper threads above the area which printed "WL-167G V2 R1.01". See the copper threads that form something like "OC"? Basically, I used a small screwdriver to cut off some copper threads to make it look like "[]C".. The objective is to "disjoin" the connectivity from point A to B. I constantly tested the points with a multimeter until they are "disconnected".

Then solder a RP-SMA (Female Edge Mount) connector as shown in the above picture. Note that my connector comes with only 4 "legs", instead of the original five. That's bcoz I removed one of the legs to prevent short-circuitry. The idea is to solder one of the "ground" leg to point B and the centre "live" leg to point A. Again, use the multimeter to help you ensure the connectivity is correct.

Talking about short-circuitry, before you solder the connector, make sure you find a small piece of cardboard to prevent the remaining 2 ground legs from contacting any copper threads at the underside of the PCB. I add a layer of tape around the cardboard to ensure that the thickness will be so fitting that the cardboard will not be easily moved.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2160655...7603390517826/

After soldering the connector, you will have to make some alterations to the case so that the PCB can be fitted back. You will have to make a hole to make room for the connector and you may have to file off a little at the bottom of the case where the USB connector is.

After that, you are pretty much ready to test out your mod

I almost fried my 1st USB card during my first mod and bought a second one as result.. Luckily I was able to salvage it after figuring where went wrong. Now I have 2 cards, I can use them with a 8dBi omni-directional antenna that comes with a magnetic base, and a simple cantenna that isn't complete without a tripod stand...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2160655...7603390517826/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/2160655...7603390517826/

If I have the time, I will try to post my statistics on the dBi improvement as a result of the mod.. The results of before and after connecting an external antenna..

Meanwhile, I hope this simple guide would be a helping hand!

P.S. Pardon me for my poor quality pictures as I took them after I have successfully modded my card and I took them with a camera phone..

[l0renz0]

I have finally fixed up my cantenna onto a mini-tripod.. At the same time, I wish to share with everyone on the results I achieved using the mod..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21606557@N03/2196855097/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21606557@N03/2196855227/

I am pretty satisfied with the results shown in NetStumbler.. As you can see from the picture, the active APs that the USB adapter can "see" without the cantenna is only 7. With the cantenna attached, it managed to reach 13 APs..

Hence, I would definitely recommend everyone who has the Asus WL-167g to try out the mod some day.. It's definitely worth it

If you have any questions on the mod, I will be glad to lend a helping hand to my best knowledge..

[pureh@te]

Fixed up your posts a little for you.

[l0renz0]

Thank you!

[l0renz0]

I have decided to add a new picture to indicate exactly where to remove the copper threads, as the previous picture is poorly done.. The new picture is taken before the card is modded and MUCH bigger than the one before. Hence, it should be clearer for all to see.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne...0457087&size=l Credits to xjufox, the site owner of mistrzowie.republika.pl for the original picture.

So far, the card is functioning very well after the mod. Point to take note is that the card is slightly hotter.

Injection is working well in both BT2 final and BT3 beta, both in vmware. However, I have to enter the "”-x 250”" option for aireplay-ng in BT3, or else it will freeze after injecting 300 to 500 packets, as BT3 is using the newer version of aircrack-ng and rt73 drivers.

Thank you!

[Deathray]

Fantastic thread .
I'm getting a WL-167G, should be here in about 2 days.
All the commotion around wireless cracking, and
haven't had the opportunity to test it out myself :P
It's damn cheep aswell :b .. Probably the cheapest usb adapter out there.
190 Danish kroner = 39.99405 U.S. dollars
I think I'm going to make an attempt on modding it

But talking about the WL-167G, is there any part of the aircrack-ng suite it doesn't support? What about master mode for a tool like fakeap ?
(note: I wouldn't ask If I haven't researched beforehand)

[l0renz0]

Originally Posted by Deathray

Fantastic thread .
I'm getting a WL-167G, should be here in about 2 days.
All the commotion around wireless cracking, and
haven't had the opportunity to test it out myself :P
It's damn cheep aswell :b .. Probably the cheapest usb adapter out there.
190 Danish kroner = 39.99405 U.S. dollars
I think I'm going to make an attempt on modding it

But talking about the WL-167G, is there any part of the aircrack-ng suite it doesn't support? What about master mode for a tool like fakeap ?
(note: I wouldn't ask If I haven't researched beforehand)

Sorry but I haven't tested fakeap before.. Haven't got time to try out all the tools in BT nowadays..

For both the aircrack-ng suites that come with BT 2.0 Final and 3.0 Beta, airodump, aireplay and aircrack work fine for me. I managed to crack WEP and WPA keys.. But I noticed the injection speed ain't as fast as my Netgear WG511T PCMCIA card.. However, in order to run BT in VMware, I have to use WL-167G..

The WL-167G may be one of the cheapest around... but thing to note is that it seriously ain't powerful as compared to my WG511T. When I compared it to my WG511T in both Windows and BT, it seems to detect less APs... Too bad I can't test the differences after the mod, as I have sold my laptop by the time I completed the cantenna...

It may not be one of the best wireless card around, but definitely one for starters like me. At least it is more affordable

[Deathray]

Okay been playing around with my WL-167g usb adapter for some time now.
I'm New to the whole IEEE 802.11 sniffing / cracking world :b.
Well the adapter didn't work in the begginning, so here's what I did
for anyone else sitting in the same situation.
The RT73 drivers in BT2 + BT3 Beta didn't work for me.
For some reason, fake authentication and injection did not work.
But airodump did. So what I did was ( well actually I did a lot of things, but
this is what worked ), download and use ofc, the latest RT73 driver from here:
http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Downloads. And now
everything works perfect .


For the newbies :

ifconfig rausb0 down
modprobe -r rt73
unplug usb adapter.
CD to module folder inside the folder you extracted the RT73 driver.
make
make install
Plug in your usb adapter.
modprobe RT73

Oh and by the way, I am also using the latest (1.0-beta2) version of aircrack-ng.
Now your WL-167gv2 usb adapter should work

[tecnos]

i have one asus wl-167g with chipset rt73 and i have the driver serialmonkey i try to install with the make make install etc etc but the driver not function correctly and is not possible to changing the mac help me please...

[Deathray]

Are you sure you own the WL-167gv2 and not v1 ?