Hi,
I have big problems with kernel 2.6 and WLAN. Quite often the connection
interrupts completely, I can't transfer anything for minutes - making
2.6 unusable for me :-(
I'm only about 5 meters away from my AP, but unfortunately there's a
celeiling between me and the AP to the reception is poor.
My hardware is a SMC 2632 PCMCIA card (802.11b) in a IBM Thinkpad A30
and a SMC AP.
lspci:
02:00.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev 80)
02:00.1 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev 80)
blade:~# cardctl ident
Socket 0:
no product info available
Socket 1:
product info: "SMC", "SMC2632W", "Version 01.02", ""
manfid: 0x0156, 0x0002
function: 6 (network)
The wireless-tools have version 26+27pre10-3, pcmcia-cs has 3.2.5, both
from Debian Sid. I have tried kernels 2.6.0, .1 and .2.
Every kernel 2.4 I've had running until now worked very well.
-----------------------------------------------------------
2.4.20:
blade:~# iwconfig eth1
eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"WLAN" Nickname:"Prism I"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412GHz Access Point:00:60:B3:17:F8:8C
Bit Rate:11Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:[ secret ] Security mode:open
Power Management:off
Link Quality:1/92 Signal level:-101 dBm Noise level:-149 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:661 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:2751 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
lsmod:
orinoco_cs 4776 1
orinoco 32068 0 [orinoco_cs]
hermes 6244 0 [orinoco_cs orinoco]
ds 7060 2 [orinoco_cs]
yenta_socket 10080 2
pcmcia_core 44928 0 [orinoco_cs ds yenta_socket]
tmm@blade:~$ netio -u 10.0.0.15
NETIO - Network Throughput Benchmark, Version 1.21
(C) 1997-2003 Kai Uwe Rommel
UDP connection established.
Packet size 1k bytes: 557 KByte/s (0%) Tx, 261 KByte/s (73%) Rx.
Packet size 2k bytes: 553 KByte/s (0%) Tx, 89 KByte/s (90%) Rx.
Packet size 4k bytes: 626 KByte/s (0%) Tx, 61444 Byte/s (92%) Rx.
Packet size 8k bytes: 517 KByte/s (2%) Tx, 13393 Byte/s (98%) Rx.
Packet size 16k bytes: 565 KByte/s (3%) Tx, 10924 Byte/s (98%) Rx.
Packet size 32k bytes: 565 KByte/s (3%) Tx, 13787 Byte/s (98%) Rx.
Done.
-----------------------------------------------------------
2.6.2:
blade:~# iwconfig eth1
eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"WLAN" Nickname:"Prism I"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412GHz Access Point:00:60:B3:17:F8:8C
Bit Rate:11Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:[ secret ] Security mode:open
Power Management:off
Link Quality:1/92 Signal level:-101 dBm Noise level:-149 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
orinoco_cs 9192 1
orinoco 43980 1 orinoco_cs
hermes 8512 2 orinoco_cs,orinoco
ds 15940 5 orinoco_cs
i82365 20876 1
pcmcia_core 71456 3 orinoco_cs,ds,i82365
tmm@blade:~$ netio -u 10.0.0.15
NETIO - Network Throughput Benchmark, Version 1.21
(C) 1997-2003 Kai Uwe Rommel
UDP connection established.
Packet size 1k bytes: 289 KByte/s (99%) Tx, 223 KByte/s (75%) Rx.
Packet size 2k bytes: 0 Byte/s (100%) Tx, 21 KByte/s (91%) Rx.
Packet size 4k bytes: 440 KByte/s (99%) Tx, 61333 Byte/s (94%) Rx.
Packet size 8k bytes: 382 KByte/s (96%) Tx, 14438 Byte/s (98%) Rx.
Packet size 16k bytes: 369 KByte/s (96%) Tx, 2365 Byte/s (98%) Rx.
Packet size 32k bytes: 239 KByte/s (98%) Tx, 3005 Byte/s (98%) Rx.
Done.
There was a break when netio transfered the 2k blocks.
My log is full of entries like this one:
Mar 1 17:54:12 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
(0004)
Mar 1 17:54:12 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP In Range (0005)
Mar 1 17:54:16 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
(0004)
Mar 1 17:54:16 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP In Range (0005)
Mar 1 17:54:19 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
(0004)
Mar 1 17:54:20 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP In Range (0005)
Mar 1 17:54:22 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
(0004)
Kernel 2.4 works far better in the poor reception situation I have,
anyone any idea what I could do without moving the AP or laptop?
When I'm near my AP everything works fine with 2.6 too.
BTW: removing the PCMCIA card when it's in use freezes my system
completely, that was no problem with 2.4.
Thanks a lot!
--
Thomas Mueller - http://www.tmueller.com for pgp key (95702B3B)
On Thursday 04 March 2004 20:01, Thomas Mueller wrote:
> I have big problems with kernel 2.6 and WLAN. Quite often the connection
> interrupts completely, I can't transfer anything for minutes - making
> 2.6 unusable for me :-(
> blade:~# iwconfig eth1
> eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"WLAN" Nickname:"Prism I"
> Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412GHz Access Point:00:60:B3:17:F8:8C
> Bit Rate:11Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
> Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
> Encryption key:[ secret ] Security mode:open
> Power Management:off
> Link Quality:1/92 Signal level:-101 dBm Noise level:-149 dBm
I have Prism 2.5 cards. I run them with hostap driver.
Link quality of 1/92 is very bad. You are on the edge
of losing connection. (At least this is the case for
my hardware).
Let's see how much errors do you have. Do this:
# cat /proc/net/wireless /proc/net/dev
On my system wlan1 has "Link Quality:66/92"
(wlan0 is an AP, has no meaningful Link Quality)
Inter-| sta-| Quality | Discarded packets | Missed | WE
face | tus | link level noise | nwid crypt frag retry misc | beacon | 16
wlan0: 0000 0 0 0 0 9178 13 23727 142280 0
wlan1: 0000 66. 195. 156. 0 0 0 3422 309008 0
Inter-| Receive | Transmit
face |bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|bytes packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
wlan0:1829928225 2539552 0 80689 0 0 0 0 1966341385 2579089 0 42 0 0 0 0
wlan1:143242367 907236 0 0 0 0 0 0 11481487 74357 0 0 0 0 0 0
So, wlan1: 907236 rx packets, 3422 retries
(and 309008 packets wasn't for me, wrong MAC, I suppose ;) )
What's your numbers?
> There was a break when netio transfered the 2k blocks.
>
> My log is full of entries like this one:
> Mar 1 17:54:12 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
> (0004)
> Mar 1 17:54:12 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP In Range (0005)
> Mar 1 17:54:16 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
> (0004)
> Mar 1 17:54:16 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP In Range (0005)
> Mar 1 17:54:19 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
> (0004)
> Mar 1 17:54:20 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP In Range (0005)
> Mar 1 17:54:22 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
> (0004)
>
> Kernel 2.4 works far better in the poor reception situation I have,
> anyone any idea what I could do without moving the AP or laptop?
> When I'm near my AP everything works fine with 2.6 too.
Is your orinoco driver is the same for 2.4 and 2.6?
Maybe 2.6 one has a bit lower max retry count or some such?
> BTW: removing the PCMCIA card when it's in use freezes my system
> completely, that was no problem with 2.4.
No oops? No SysRq?
--
vda
>>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas Mueller <[email protected]> writes:
Thomas> Kernel 2.4 works far better in the poor reception situation I
Thomas> have, anyone any idea what I could do without moving the AP or
Thomas> laptop? When I'm near my AP everything works fine with 2.6
Thomas> too.
Start out by forcing it to a lower link speed, at that signal quality
you really don't want to try and go above 2MBit/sec. If you keep
trying to do 11MBit/sec the card will constantly try the higher rate
and then lose signal, drop down and try again. Fixing the rate should
improve the situation - at least it has always done so for me ;-)
Cheers,
Jes
Hi Jes,
Jes Sorensen meinte am Friday, dem 05. March 2004:
> Thomas> Kernel 2.4 works far better in the poor reception situation I
> Thomas> have, anyone any idea what I could do without moving the AP or
> Thomas> laptop? When I'm near my AP everything works fine with 2.6
> Thomas> too.
>
> Start out by forcing it to a lower link speed, at that signal quality
> you really don't want to try and go above 2MBit/sec. If you keep
> trying to do 11MBit/sec the card will constantly try the higher rate
> and then lose signal, drop down and try again. Fixing the rate should
> improve the situation - at least it has always done so for me ;-)
I tried that (rate 2M auto) but that doesn't improve anything. I still
loose the connection to the AP, I don't think that happens less frequent
than at 11 MBit/s.
--
MfG Thomas Mueller - http://www.tmueller.com for pgp key (95702B3B)
Hi Denis,
> > blade:~# iwconfig eth1
> > eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"WLAN" Nickname:"Prism I"
> > Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412GHz Access Point:00:60:B3:17:F8:8C
> > Bit Rate:11Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
> > Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
> > Encryption key:[ secret ] Security mode:open
> > Power Management:off
> > Link Quality:1/92 Signal level:-101 dBm Noise level:-149 dBm
>
> I have Prism 2.5 cards. I run them with hostap driver.
> Link quality of 1/92 is very bad. You are on the edge
> of losing connection. (At least this is the case for
> my hardware).
Yes I am. When I move some meters in the room I loose connection with
kernel 2.4 too.
> Let's see how much errors do you have. Do this:
>
> # cat /proc/net/wireless /proc/net/dev
[..]
tmm@blade:~$ cat /proc/net/wireless /proc/net/dev
Inter-| sta-| Quality | Discarded packets |
Missed | WE
face | tus | link level noise | nwid crypt frag retry misc |
beacon | 16
eth1: 0000 0. 150. 107. 0 8 0 0 0
0
Inter-| Receive |
Transmit
face |bytes packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|bytes
packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
lo: 58298 881 0 0 0 0 0 0
58298 881 0 0 0 0 0 0
eth0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3456 14 0 0 0 0 0 0
eth1: 532101 1336 0 0 0 0 0 0
223614 1299 466 0 0 0 0 0
sit0: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
That's really interesting, thanks for that hint!
Transmit: 1299 packets, 466 errs - argh.
When I can't transmit anything 'errs' increases by one every few
seconds.
As comparison: kernel 2.4.20 has 1743 packets and 9 errs at the moment.
So the interesting question is: why is the error rate with kernel 2.6
that high?
> > There was a break when netio transfered the 2k blocks.
> >
> > My log is full of entries like this one:
> > Mar 1 17:54:12 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
> > (0004)
> > Mar 1 17:54:12 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP In Range (0005)
> > Mar 1 17:54:16 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
> > (0004)
> > Mar 1 17:54:16 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP In Range (0005)
> > Mar 1 17:54:19 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
> > (0004)
> > Mar 1 17:54:20 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP In Range (0005)
> > Mar 1 17:54:22 blade kernel: eth1: New link status: AP Out of Range
> > (0004)
> >
> > Kernel 2.4 works far better in the poor reception situation I have,
> > anyone any idea what I could do without moving the AP or laptop?
> > When I'm near my AP everything works fine with 2.6 too.
>
> Is your orinoco driver is the same for 2.4 and 2.6?
> Maybe 2.6 one has a bit lower max retry count or some such?
2.6.2 has version 0.13e, 2.4.23 has 0.13d. I diffed the orinoco.* but
there are only small changes.
> > BTW: removing the PCMCIA card when it's in use freezes my system
> > completely, that was no problem with 2.4.
>
> No oops? No SysRq?
Nope, it just freezes :-(
--
MfG Thomas Mueller - http://www.tmueller.com for pgp key (95702B3B)