WirelessMon FAQ

My License key does not seem to work.

  • Both the Username and Registration Key must be correctly entered before the software turns itself into the registered version. See this step by step guide for help. Also note that V2 keys will not work in V3 of WirelessMon.

The "Rates Supported" column on the summary tab is not displaying higher speed (for example up to 54Mb/s).

  • Some older network cards that do not support higher speed may not display the speed for newer networks, for example an 802.11b card may not display all the speeds of an 802.11g access point. Currently windows information structures do not report speeds higher then 54MB/s, even in Vista. So, 802.11n devices might not report the correct speeds, but this should not affect how they operate.

I get a "Cannot find corresponding counter name for this network card" error message.

  • This may mean the performance counters are disabled, the user doesn't have permission to access them or they are missing on the system.

    Windows XP/2K: This may mean the performance counters for your machine are disabled. Please check if the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib\Disable Performance Counters" exists, if so, check it is set to 0 and reboot.

    Windows Vista: Please check WirelessMon is running in elevated Administrator mode by right clicking on the exe and choosing properties, clicking the compatibility tab, and selecting the "Run this program as administrator" option.

    If there are missing there is a post in our forum about resolving this and there is also a Microsoft support article about rebuilding the performance counters.

The security information for my access point is displayed wrong in Windows Vista.

  • Currently when Vista returns a list of available networks those with the same SSID are treated as the same network, even if they are not and have different security settings. This means vista will list them all under the same entry with the same security settings, usually as the newest/most secure setting being used among the group.

Can WirelessMon display a signal to noise ratio?

  • No, Windows drivers generally do not support retrieving noise measurements for wireless connections and usually need to be accessed using a manufacturer specific driver. WirelessMon also uses passive rather than active scanning for networks and this also prevents a signal to noise ration being obtained.

I get an error about "gdiplus.dll" missing.

  • The GDI+ redistributable package from Microsoft is required to run WirelessMon. This should come shipped with Windows XP, but Windows 2000 users may need to download and install the package from Microsoft. The last know download for the package was available from the Microsoft page here. Unzip the files into the WirelessMon install directory.

Can I use a USB GPS with WirelessMon?

  • From version 4, WirelessMon supports Garmin GPS devices via USB connection (for example the Garmin GPS20x).

    For other manufacturers, if your GPS uses a USB connection, when it is plugged in it should be connected via a virtual COM port and still use serial communications for data transfer (providing the manufacturer provides the correct drivers, you may need to download the appropriate driver from the manufacturer). See the WirelessMon help file for more information and how to determine which COM port the USB device is attached too.

WirelessMon shows an error message when it is launched.

  • Check the following items:
    • Make sure that you have logged into computer as administrator or an account with administrator rights.
    • Check that you are not already running a copy of WirelessMon on same machine. Only one WirelessMon process is allowed at a time.
    • Wait a few seconds and attempt to start WirelessMon again. (There may be some other device using the device driver)
    • Contact us giving us as much detail as you can about the error.

The available networks are flashing between available and not available.

  • This appears for some network cards when they are not connected to an access point and is most noticeable with a fast sample time. Try connecting to an access point or increasing the sample time.

The network is listed as available with a low strength, but I am unable to connect to it.

  • The disassociation value of a network, where the connection to the access point is dropped, is around -90dB, so it is possible the network card can still perceive the access point but the card itself is not strong enough to maintain a connection.

Where can I get a map to use?

  • The maps need to be an image type that WirelessMon can use (GIF, JPG, BMP, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, EXIF, WMF, EMF) and you can get it from a tool like Google Earth, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps or scanning a hard copy map that you already have.

    If using GPS, the map also needs to be north aligned so the Y axis is north/south and the X axis is east/west. For the best results you should use an accurate, large scale map such as 1:500 or 1:1500 as WirelessMon can't account for the curvature of the earth when estimating Lat/Long positions and will become less accurate with smaller scale (eg 1:10000) maps.

How much memory does loading a map take?

  • The amount of memory used by WirelessMon when displaying a map depends on several factors:
    • The file size of the image - a smaller image size will use less memory.
    • The dots per inch (DPI) of the image - a lower DPI will use less memory.
    • The hexagon size used - the bigger the hexagon size the less memory is used.
    Image Size Dimensions DPI Memory used (Largest Hex) Memory used (Smallest Hex)
    10.5 MB 1985x2864 199 62.2 MB 76.2 MB
    2.2 MB 1597x1417 199 38.1 MB 46.5 MB
    0.8 MB 754x1088 75 19.8 MB 22.6 MB

    *Example of image size and memory used

I get a message about a missing PDH.DLL file on startup.

  • The most common cause of this error is because you are running the software on Windows 95, 98, NT, or ME. These versions of Windows are not supported. Only Windows XP, Vista and 2003 are officially supported. (the software might in theory work on Windows 2000 with SP4, but we don't support Windows 2000).

Why there is there "N/A" displayed for some of the statistical & status information?

  • Not all Wireless cards can display all statistical & status information. This is because some wireless adapter device drivers do not fully support the Microsoft standard Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) for 802.11. In fact during our testing, we found most cards only support a subset of the potential information. WirelessMon displays "N/A" when no information is provided by the device driver.

The bandwidth of my wireless network card decreases when WirelessMon is running, why?

  • You probably have the sample rate set too high in the WirelessMon configuration window. Having a high sample rate can put additional load on the CPU and seems to block the device driver from sending or receiving data while access points are being scanned (at least for some cards). Therefore, we do not recommend using a sample rate of less than 1 second. For most applications, a value between of 2 and 30 seconds is adequate.

How can I avoid needing to set the configuration values each time I run WirelessMon?

  • Use the "Save configuration" button on the configuration tab.

What data format is used for the log files?

  • WirelessMon mostly uses CSV format for log files (Comma Separated Value). Using this format makes it easy to import the data into Excel or a database.

I have found a bug or want to request an improvement to WirelessMon?

  • Please contact us from the support page via E-mail and send us as much details as you can.