Guide to Enable WPA2-PSK Support on Dlink DWL-G630 Wireless Card

Hi Friends,

If you are using DWL-G630 Wireless Card from Dlink, then you might have noted that it does not support WPA2-PSK Encryption.

I am talking of particular DWL-G630 Rev. D Card which are sold out here in India.
The driver that came along with the contents are v4.10 released in 2005 which are pretty old.

A quick search around google to find out the latest drivers from Dlink seems pretty painful task as there is no proper information available on Dlink Official Website.

Hence, i decided to crack this nut...as i did not want to lower my Wireless Router's security encryption anything below WPA2-PSK just because of lame non-availability of driver!

First, in order to get latest drivers from Dlink; finally landed me to the Dlink's Global US FTP Site, where dozens of driver zips are available.
You have to manually download & have a look if it will work for your card or not. Dont go for the filename to determine the driver model as it might support many cross cards.
You need to check the driver INF file post download to exactly determine which cards are supported.

DLink's Global FTP Driver Site: ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Wireless/

Now, after downloading couple of files, the only latest driver post v4.10 was v4.1.2.725 released on 06/27/2007.
ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Wireless/dwlG630_revE/Drivers/dwlG630_revE_drivers_514.zip

If you install these drivers from Dlink, don't expect it to support WPA2-PSK Encryption!!
Thus, the search for WPA2-PSK Support continued!!

Lets have a quick introduction over WPA2-PSK & its support on Microsoft Platform:
A very good article for Microsoft support can be read at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/security/expert/bowman_wirelesssecurity.mspx

Note that you need XP Service Pack2 or the specific update in order to make sure that your OS Support's WPA2-PSK Encryption.
If you are already on Windows XP Service Pack3...you are on track ;-)

Two good articles to go over WPA2-PSK Encryption details:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb878054.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Protected_Access

So now to move ahead with our WPA2-PSK Support quest...i went around few articles which mentioned that the chipset used in DWL-G630 is manufactured by Atheros!

A quick search around points that Dlink DWL-G630 has AR5005 chipset. Now the catch out here is Atheros drivers support WPA2-PSK Encryption.

So finally after digging on the google, i got the below Atheros AR5005X chipset driver compatible for DWL-G630!
WPA2-PSK Supporting DWL-G630 Driver for Windows XP: http://www.filefactory.com/file/a1fcbea/n/atheros_ar5xxx_770406_xp.zip

Once i downloaded this & did an update driver, my Wireless card connected instantly to my Wireless Router Access Point!

If you are looking to configure this Card on Linux, then below is a good page on Ubuntu Forums for the same:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-176750.html

Finally a day along wait and precious R&D came to some useful conclusion.
I am not sure why DLink is not releasing an updated driver which would support the WPA2-PSK Encryption, but as long as we have a workaround we should not be complaining ;-)

I hope this documentation seals up the issue for anyone else as i did not find a conclusive dedicated document on the internet for this issue.

Go Wireless >>>>>>>>>

Keywords: Wireless, Wireless NIC, Wireless Card, DWL-G630 Rev D, Dlink, WPA2, WPA, WPA2-PSK, Atheros 5005X, Atheros 5xxx, Driver, Wireless Driver, etc