Bug 463250

Summary:	madwifi: WG311T only operates when set to 802.11b mode
Product:	[openSUSE] openSUSE 11.1	Reporter:	Forgotten User xkLf2DaQYV <forgotten_xkLf2DaQYV>
Component:	Network	Assignee:	Helmut Schaa <hschaa>
Status:	RESOLVED UPSTREAM	QA Contact:	E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity:	Normal
Priority:	P4 - Low	CC:	meissner
Version:	Final
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	Other
OS:	openSUSE 11.1
Whiteboard:
Found By:	---	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---

Description Forgotten User xkLf2DaQYV 2009-01-02 11:09:14 UTC

I've installed madwifi 11.1 64-bit packages from ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/repositories/home:/drankinatty/openSUSE_11.1/x86_64/ as the ath5k driver didn't work for me (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=463247) on opensuse 11.1 64 bit for my WG311T card.

I installed the RPM packages as normal and iwlist ath0 scan showed my WEP-encrypted network. I configured the card in YAST to enter my ESSID and 128 bit hex key. On restart of network I had high packet loss and high ping times when pinging my router. Typical was up to 80% packet loss and some ping times over 10,000 ms and lots of timeouts.

I found that the solution to this was to restrict the card to 802.11b speed by doing 'iwpriv ath0 mode 2'. However, on 10.3 with the madwifi packages from madwifi.org/suse/10.3 I never had to do this. This improved the result to:

50 packets transmitted, 48 received, 4% packet loss, time 49257ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 3.536/63.800/609.739/130.083 ms

For comparison my Samsung Q45 laptop on the same desk as the PC has the same YAST config for its Intel wireless card, connects at 40Mb/s or more and can ping the router with 0% packet loss like this:

50 packets transmitted, 50 received, 0% packet loss, time 49212ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.789/3.957/76.822/10.867 ms

Also, on Windows XP the WG311T has continued to work as before i.e. no packet loss.

I submit this bug as some regression in the madwifi packages that has forced me to restrict the connection to 802.11b when I didn't have to on 10.3.

Outputs:
lspci | grep Atheros
01:02.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. Atheros AR5001X+
Wireless Network Adapter (rev01)

uname -r
2.6.27.7-9-default

rpm -qa | grep madwifi
madwifi-kmp-default-R3878_2.6.27.7_9.1-2.1
madwifi-R3878-2.1

lsmod | grep ath
ath_rate_sample        13768  1
ath_pci               260056  0
wlan                  240752  5 wlan_wep,wlan_scan_sta,ath_rate_sample,ath_pci
ath_hal               276352  3 ath_rate_sample,ath_pci

iwconfig ath0
ath0      IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"Yoshitoshi"  Nickname:"linux-6wie"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:18:XX:XX:XX:XX
          Bit Rate:1 Mb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=1/1
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:1500-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XX   Security mode:open
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=30/70  Signal level=-68 dBm  Noise level=-98 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:941  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

ifconfig ath0
ath0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
          inet addr:192.168.1.65  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:808268 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:377827 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:585364726 (558.2 Mb)  TX bytes:78799159 (75.1 Mb)


[I have replaced my network key/AP/MAC with Xs.]

Comment 1 Marcus Meissner 2009-01-02 11:56:39 UTC

reassigning to buildservice project owner.

Comment 2 David Rankin 2009-01-11 18:25:43 UTC

Rob,

    The madwifi rpms in drankinatty were initially built as a stop-gap measure following the initial release of 11.1 until the madwifi project could build rpms for the release. The rpm were built with the latest SVN release source from madwifi, at the time Rev. 3878. The rpms were built for the AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter and I do not know the status of support for the WG311T card.

    Since I built the rpms, the madwifi project has subsequently released the drivers for openSuSE 11.1. They are available at:

http://madwifi-project.org/suse/11.1/

    Could you give the official madwifi drivers a try and report back? If the madwifi-project drivers show the same problem, then there is a problem with the card being supported. If they do work fine, then there is a problem with the svn source code used to build the rpms in drankinatty. In either case, I don't have access to a WG311T card to test, so I will have to rely on your feedback.

    In any case, we probably need to "Reassign bug to default assignee of selected component" for further analysis of support of the WG311T card.

Comment 3 Helmut Schaa 2009-01-12 12:19:13 UTC

Could you please attach the output of "hwinfo --wlan"?

Comment 4 Forgotten User xkLf2DaQYV 2009-01-12 19:10:30 UTC

24: PCI 102.0: 0282 WLAN controller
  [Created at pci.318]
  UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_168c_13
  Unique ID: xFhm.8+U5UjiRbz6
  Parent ID: H0_h.8LoPsVNGJbF
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.0/0000:01:02.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:01:02.0
  Hardware Class: network
  Model: "Atheros AR5001X+ Wireless Network Adapter"
  Vendor: pci 0x168c "Atheros Communications Inc."
  Device: pci 0x0013 "Atheros AR5001X+ Wireless Network Adapter"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1385 "Netgear"
  SubDevice: pci 0x5a00
  Revision: 0x01
  Driver: "ath_pci"
  Driver Modules: "ath_pci"
  Device File: ath0
  Features: WLAN
  Memory Range: 0xf9ff0000-0xf9ffffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  IRQ: 18 (no events)
  HW Address: 00:0f:b5:8e:be:9e
  Link detected: yes
  WLAN channels: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
  WLAN frequencies: 2.412 2.417 2.422 2.427 2.432 2.437 2.442 2.447 2.452 2.457 2.462
  WLAN bitrates: 1 2 5.5 11
  WLAN encryption modes: WEP40 WEP104 WEP128 TKIP CCMP
  WLAN authentication modes: open sharedkey wpa-psk wpa-eap
  Module Alias: "pci:v0000168Cd00000013sv00001385sd00005A00bc02sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: ath5k is not active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe ath5k"
  Driver Info #1:
    Driver Status: ath_pci is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe ath_pci"
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #10 (PCI bridge)

Comment 5 Helmut Schaa 2009-01-14 16:48:49 UTC

Rob, is there a specific reason why you don't use ath5k?

However since madwifi is not officially shipped with openSUSE I would suggest to open a ticket on madwifi-project.org as I do not have much insight into madwifi.

Comment 6 Forgotten User xkLf2DaQYV 2009-01-14 18:00:28 UTC

Yes, using ath5k a network scan didn't show my network at all (I filed https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=463247).

Comment 7 Forgotten User xkLf2DaQYV 2009-01-15 23:13:13 UTC

Upgraded RPMs to the new ones at madwifi.org/suse/11.1 and it didn't solve my problem. Madwifi ticket opened: http://madwifi-project.org/ticket/2225 though I hope that ticket won't mean this bug is closed before my issue is fixed, whatever the cause/solution.

Comment 8 Helmut Schaa 2009-01-16 08:12:10 UTC

(In reply to comment #7)
> though I hope that ticket won't mean this bug is closed before my
> issue is fixed, whatever the cause/solution.

Hmm, ok, let's leave this bug open but nevertheless I'd like to concentrate on fixing ath5k instead of madwifi as it is the default driver for your card. 

Could you please attach the requested information in bnc#463247?
Thanks.

Comment 9 Helmut Schaa 2009-02-06 10:20:42 UTC

Adjusting summary.

Comment 10 Helmut Schaa 2009-06-04 15:19:14 UTC

Rob, bug 463247 is already marked as FIXED, I hope you have a working setup now with ath5k :)

Hence, closing this report as UPSTREAM as you've already opened a ticket for madwifi. Thanks.