Atheros wireless problems.

[Sam Leffler]

Frank Mayhar wrote:
> So I obtained a D-Link DWL-AG660 cardbus card, which has a 5213 (I
> believe) Atheros chipset in it; it's an a/b/g card.  This is to use
> while the chipset embedded in my laptop isn't supported.  It came today,
> I installed it tonight and, well, problems.
>
> I can get it to associate and, sometimes, even to get an IP address, but
> as soon as I start trying to actually pass traffic on it, all hell
> breaks loose.  It starts timing out and the ath_hal starts complaining.
>
> Essential information:
>
> ath0 at pci0:57:0:0:       class=0x020000 card=0x3a631186 chip=0x0013168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
>     vendor     = 'Atheros Communications Inc.'
>     device     = 'AR5212, AR5213 802.11a/b/g Wireless Adapter'
>     class      = network
>     subclass   = ethernet
> ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
>         ether 00:13:46:11:6b:41
>         media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g
>         status: associated
> wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
>         ether 00:13:46:11:6b:41
>         inet6 fe80::213:46ff:fe11:6b41%wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4 
>         media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet OFDM/54Mbps mode 11g
>         status: associated
>         ssid Unwired channel 1 (2412 Mhz 11g) bssid 00:1f:33:82:2f:6d
>         regdomain FCC indoor ecm authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy ON
>         deftxkey UNDEF TKIP 2:128-bit txpower 18 bmiss 7 scanvalid 450 bgscan
>         bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 5 protmode CTS
>         wme burst ff roaming MANUAL
>
> >From the dmesg:
> ath0: <Atheros 5212> mem 0xf2110000-0xf211ffff irq 17 at device 0.0 on cardbus0
> ath0: [ITHREAD]
> ath0: WARNING: using obsoleted if_watchdog interface
> ath0: mac 5.9 phy 4.3 radio 3.6
> wlan0: Ethernet address: 00:13:46:11:6b:41
>
> Then from /var/log/messages:
> Sep 24 21:14:11  kernel: ath0: device timeout
> Sep 24 21:14:11  kernel: ath0: ath_reset: unable to reset hardware; hal status 3230480741
>
> I've also seen:
> Sep 24 21:03:55 auton kernel: ath0: unable to reset hardware; hal status 3310983360
> Sep 24 21:02:35 auton kernel: ath0: unable to reset hardware; hal status 0
>
> But it has only been those messages.  I haven't yet tried turning on
> bootverbose but I can if you would like.
>
> Any ideas?  Any suggestions?  As I sit here (using the wired em0 instead
> of ath0) the lights on the card are happily blinking but it's not doing
> anything at all.
>   
The status codes look bogus.  In 0.10.5.10 there is a code path through 
reset where status is not set if the chip is not brought out of low 
power mode.  Why this might happen is beyond me (could be a cardbus 
problem) but if you initialize status to a known value before the hal 
calls that are failing this might confirm that as the problem.  I've 
fixed the hal fwiw.

    Sam