User Manual

Section 3
Configuration Utility
13
Xircom Inc. Mini PCI User’s Guide
The transmit rate can be set to:
•
Fully Automatic – your adapter chooses the highest available rate providing reliable
communications based on the capabilities of the Access Point or station with which it
communicates and on the received signal quality
•
Auto 1 or 2 Mb – allows only 1 and 2 Mb/s operation
•
5.5 Mb – allows only 5.5 Mb/s operation
•
11 Mb – allows only 11Mb/s operation
To change the Transmit Rate, click the down arrow at the right of the field, highlight the rate you
want to set, and click the Apply button.
Under most conditions, you should choose Fully Automatic as the transmit rate. In general, fixed
rates are used only in test environments.
Enabling Power Save Mode
The IEEE 802.11 standard provides a Power Save Mode. In this mode your adapter listens for a
beacon (a periodic frame which defines the network type and attributes) and determines the
beacon interval. Between beacons the card puts itself to sleep, enabling power savings. At the
time of the expected beacon the card wakes itself up and receives the beacon. The received
beacon contains information about whether the Access Point or station has buffered frames for
the card. If frames are available the card requests those frames until no more frames are
available. The card then goes back to sleep until the next beacon.
For Access Points that support power save mode and for stations equipped with WLAN cards,
enabling this mode can significantly reduce power consumption, which is particularly important
if the host computer is operating on battery power. However, be aware that power save mode
also results in lowered transmission and reception speed on the wireless LAN.