Atheros AR5008X AR5416 issues

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009, Sam Leffler wrote:

> Warren Block wrote:
>>
>> ath0: <Atheros 5416> mem 0xf8200000-0xf820ffff irq 19 at device 0.0 on
>> pci20
>> ath0: [ITHREAD]
>> ath0: AR5418 mac 12.10 RF5133 phy 8.1
>>
>> It sort-of works with a Linkys WRT54G b/g access point, but has some
>> problems that keep it from working well.
>>
>> Transfers are usually stalled, then will suddenly jump to 2MB/sec for a
>> little while, then stall again with the output of bb hang messages.
>> Access point LED shows long pauses.
>>
>> kernel: ath0: bb hang detected (0x80), reseting
>> kernel: ath0: bb hang detected (0x80), reseting
>> kernel: ath0: bb hang detected (0x4), reseting
>> kernel: ath0: bb hang detected (0x4), reseting
>
> This problem is a hardware bug in the 5416 that also appears in other
> Atheros 11n cards (i've seen it w/ 9160- and 9280-based cards).  Atheros
> refused to help me resolve this, except to say the problem doesn't
> hobble their linux driver. So to fix this problem you'll need to compare
> how the linux code works to how the freebsd code works.  If you can
> collect register access traces from the linux driver then you can
> compare them to what happens in freebsd (use the ATH_DEBUG_ALQ option).
> Otherwise you can try to do this through code inspection.

Beyond my abilities at present, unfortunately.  Fortunately, the 
AR5007EX/AR5BXB63 cards are relatively easy to find, cheap, and work 
great.  Thank you for all the work you've done to make that happen.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA