Compatible monitor mode Wi-Fi cards under windows
Acrylic WiFi software works with all existing WiFi cards on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. Monitor mode WiFi capture is and advanced capability supported by Acrylic with most WLAN cards.
Some WiFi cards drivers don’t adequately report information about the signal level or WiFi channel on which the measurement is made, limiting its use to generate WiFi coverage maps under monitor mode. There are two main WLAN cards groups that support monitor mode WiFi under Windows, as shown below:
1 – Generic monitor mode WiFi cards: Standard WiFi cards (less expensive ones) on which monitor mode is supported by the hardware and by vendor drivers under windows. Its performance has been verified with Acrylic WiFi NDIS Driver and supports Wireshark integration. WiFi cards with Broadcom chipsets are fully compatible with NDIS and monitor mode under windows.
Monitor mode compatible Wi-Fi Devices
| Complete | It works perfectly in monitor mode. This card is recommended. |
| Good | Works well in monitor mode, is 90% stable and perfectly usable |
| Partial | It can be set to monitor mode but RSSI values may not display correctly or return malformed packets. |
| Limited | Can be put in monitor mode, incorrect RSSI, can stop capturing after a while or return malformed packets. |
| NOT compatible | Not compatible with monitor mode, may cause a BSOD if you try to enable monitor mode. |
2 – Professional hardware: WiFi hardware product developed by Riverbed that supports native capture under Windows with excellent performance and signal precision levels. Airpcap devices are expensive (200$ – 600$) and are compatible with Acrylic WiFi Professional and Acrylic WiFi Heatmaps.
- Airpcap Classic – b/g/n
- Airpcap Tx – a/b/g/n
- Airpcap Nx
Recommended monitor mode WiFi cards
We hope to increase the number of compatible WiFi cards supported by improving our driver and by contacting manufacturers to include NDIS support properly. Hoever, any card can work using native capture mode “WLAN API”, by disabling monitor mode on Acrylic WiFi device selector. We recommend your to purchase D-Link DWA-182 Revision A1 (Revision C1 uses an incompatible chipset), Netgear A6200 or Asus USB-AC53 for fully monitor mode capable Wi-Fi cards.
Send us an email to support@acrylicWiFi.com to report us information about hardware compatibility and we will update our list.
If you have compatible hardware, want to test your WiFi card and want to try an advanced WLAN sniffer give a try to our products:
- Acrylic Wi-Fi Home: Free WiFi scanner for windows that provides information about networks, channels, connected clients and speed..
- Acrylic Wi-Fi Profesional: Professional WLAN analysis and advanced wireless networks information (Trial available).
- Acrylic Wi-Fi HeatMaps: Wireless site survey WiFi, coverage analysis and WiFi heat maps (Trial available).