ALFA AWUS036H usb Adapter REFUSES completely to connect

SOLVED! By me, please see page 2!

OK,

This is my first post, so go easy on me..!

I have a Sony VPCEC2S0E laptop which is less than a year old.

I have spent DAYS trying to get the ALFA adapter to work, I have searched the net, and in particular the forums, including this one, and I have found lots of issues with it, a couple of solutions, but no joy for me.

I have tried lots of different drivers, tried it with and without the Realtek Utility (VERY conflicty - if that is a word), installed XP on separate partition - my laptop is now dual boot, even had the adapter changed in case it was faulty. No joy at all.

With Windows XP I have various drivers missing so I gave up, got the ethernet working though.

I have an internal Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter, (got the usb ALFA to improve the range) I have disabled it while installing, and after, but could this be stopping ALFA connecting?

Or maybe some Sony bloatware in the background?

The Adapter (Realtek RTL8187 Wireless 802.11b/g 54Mbps USB 2.0 Network Adapter) is listed in device manager as working. It is Enabled in Network Connections, the troubleshooter just tells me what I already know - that there is a problem with it!

There are 2 drivers in Driver File Details - RTL8187.sys (Realtek) and vwifibus.sys (Microsoft)

I am sure that either I am doing something simple wrong, or it just does not work on my system, but I have followed the instructions to the letter, and the thing just sits there. Getting slightly warm.

Please help if you can, it is so frustrating, don't know whether to cry or smash the thing up!!
Asking you guys is surely the best option!

Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit - and as of yesterday, SP1
Intel i5 2.27GHz
6GB RAM

Hi gin99, welcome to seven forums, did you install the driver that came with the device? if so could you system restore prior to the installation of alfa if you could go back as far as the first installation. my experienced with alfa is that the driver that came with the device is not compatible with windows 7. you can download the driver here

ALFA Network – WLAN, WiFi phone, ADSL, KVM, Bluetooth, PoE Products -- Driver

choose the correct model and version of windows.

if you have not done a system restore, you can wipe the previous driver with this

Guru3D - Driver Sweeper (Setup) download from Guru3D.com

then download the appropriate driver from alfa site, extract it and click the setup.exe as shown on the right. that will install the utility also, which is on the left. but if you the want the driver only, let windows search for it automatically on your harddrive.

if successfully installed, eventually you will have two network wireless adapters displayed like so.

i hope this helps.

hi gin99, the links are working perfectly and they are available on their sites just downloaded myself. the alfa driver is 17 mb with the filename 036_WindowsDriver_Win7_6.1316.1209.2009_UI_1.00.0145.L and driver sweeper is 4.5 mb with the filename DriverSweeper_2.1.0-[Guru3D.com].

edit: currently i am using alfa awuso36h device for wifi connection. i had the same problem before, what i did was...(i reformatted my hardrive with fresh installation) just to have this device working. make sure your device is not defective and check also your usb cable.