Return-path: Received: from mail.atheros.com ([12.19.149.2]:22941 "EHLO mail.atheros.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753197Ab0LFUmd convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Mon, 6 Dec 2010 15:42:33 -0500 Received: from mail.atheros.com ([10.10.20.105]) by sidewinder.atheros.com for ; Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:42:18 -0800 Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2010 12:42:30 -0800 From: "Luis R. Rodriguez" To: Ben Greear CC: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Bj=F6rn?= Smedman , Luis Rodriguez , Felix Fietkau , "ath9k-devel@lists.ath9k.org" , "linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org" Subject: Re: [ath9k-devel] Script to crash ath9k with DMA errors. Message-ID: <20101206204230.GG21442@tux> References: <4CF44543.9070605@candelatech.com> <20101130004424.GC1901@tux> <4CF6D8C8.2000308@candelatech.com> <4CF8A6DE.4020804@candelatech.com> <4CFAFBE1.3080505@openwrt.org> <4CFB20BA.5090300@candelatech.com> <20101206193600.GC21442@tux> <4CFD3DE3.4000207@candelatech.com> <4CFD4602.1030304@candelatech.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" In-Reply-To: <4CFD4602.1030304@candelatech.com> Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Mon, Dec 06, 2010 at 12:22:26PM -0800, Ben Greear wrote: > On 12/06/2010 12:11 PM, Bj?rn Smedman wrote: > > On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 8:47 PM, Ben Greear wrote: > >> With 16 properly configured non-encrypted stations, running with > >> wpa-supplicant > >> with netlink driver& sharing scan results, the interfaces quickly > >> associate. > >> > >> However, I do continue to see DMA warnings such as these (I had picked up my > >> portable phone, and it knocked all the interfaces offline ..here > >> they are coming back up after I hung up the phone). > > > > Is there some theory as to why using multiple interfaces cause so many > > problems with DMA? > > Seems pretty directly related to channel changes and/or resets, and exacerbated > by other interfaces sending data while another is scanning, for instance. > > Other issues we've found in the past have been various races that you wouldn't > normally see with a single VIF. Right, there might be some other hot path we need to lock around over. Not sure what it could be though we should be locking stopping RX over resets already though. These should all be atomic, in fact starting TX too IIRC, hence the name change of the lock to be specific to the PCU together. There may be other PCU changes we may need to contend against. Luis