SPAM-LOW: Re: Atheros 5212 based card causing system freeze - suggested replacement?

[Geoff Roberts]

Hi Adrian,

Thanks very much for getting back.

On Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:06:22 am you wrote:
> Were you always running a 64 bit kernel? Are you able to please try
> booting a 32 bit kernel?

Yes, it was always a 64 bit kernel. I'll download the i386 8.2 R CD and give 
that a go.

> > I need a card capable of running Multiple Base Stations or Virtual Access
> > Points (VAP) - another reason for looking for a newer card.
> 
> The NIC you have will do that just fine.

Sorry I didn't explain that very well. I wanted to use hostapd to manage the 
access points. hostapd seems to need different MAC addresses for each virtual 
access point. I couldn't find a way to assign different MAC addresses for each 
virtual access point for hostapd with this particular card. Have I understood 
that correctly? I wasn't 100% sure of my reading of the hostap config file.

Are there any Atheros based cards you know of that work with hostapd in this 
way?

> Are you able to boot things on the older hardware and see what the
> above debugging gives?
> Eg what the attach line is on your amd64 box?

I think I'll be lucky. The display system completely went on the old system - 
trying PCI or AGP graphics cards didn't make any difference. I'll see if I can 
rig a serial cable to another machine to watch the boot process.

I'll try the i386 8.2 R download first and see if I have any luck with the old 
system before it goes out for permanent retirement (that'll take a few days).

Kind regards,

Geoff