Switching to 4.174.64.19 firmware for G-PHY cards?

[Rafał Miłecki]

W dniu 7 grudnia 2010 20:21 użytkownik Hauke Mehrtens
<hauke at hauke-m.de> napisał:
> On 12/07/2010 04:32 PM, Larry Finger wrote:
>> On 12/07/2010 06:28 AM, Rafał Miłecki wrote:
>>> W dniu 7 grudnia 2010 13:21 użytkownik Rafał Miłecki <zajec5 at gmail.com> napisał:
>>>> Currently we tell ppl to use 4.150.10.5 for G-PHY and 4.174.64.19 for
>>>> LP-PHY on our wiki page.
>>>>
>>>> Firmware files for G-PHY differ a little between there two versions,
>>>> but did we actually get any problems reports?
>>>>
>>>> Can we drop 4.150.10.5 description?
>>>
>>> openSUSE 11.3 seems to download 4.174.64.19 only with it's script and
>>> I didn't heard about any reports. One more point for dropping
>>> 4.150.10.5?
>>
>> I pushed the patch to change openSUSE's script early in the beta testing for
>> that release. I have heard no complaints either. I agree that 4.150.10.5 should
>> be dropped.

Sorry for responding so late, that bug reports scared me at first
look, I switched to sth else to forgot that case.


> We had serious issues with firmware version 4.174.64.19 in OpenWrt and
> switched back to the old on as the default option. This issue afftected
> mostly LP-PHY devices.
>
> See the Bug report: https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/6907 This was with
> kernel 2.6.32 and compat-wireless from  round about March to May 2010.
> Stable means the old firmware version and experimental the new one in
> the bug report.

OK, I can see there are 2 bug reports:
https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/7117
https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/6907

First one #7117 is about some memory leak and "page allocation
failure" as a result. It really should have nothing to do with
firmware, I guess we just had some memory leak in b43.

Second one #6907 is much worse...

1) At beginning it's about hanging router, it seems to be also (the
same?) memory leak. Probably scanning triggers it. Out of memory leads
to killing process but that resulted in router hang. No firmware
related. Not sure if it was fixed.

2) jbemmel reported issue with card hang (not whole router), it
happened with messages: "Channel switch to default failed" /
"Microcode not responding". It was related to not allowed access to
B43_MMIO_PHY0 register. No firmware related. Fixed by updating
http://bcm-v4.sipsolutions.net/802.11/PHY/Anacore

3) Now, (maybe) firmware related...

a) jbemmel switched to 4.150.10.5 and updated b43 at the same time and
reported success. No idea what really helped.

b) ldolse reported success when "building with the stable B43". Not
sure if he tried experimental.

c) anup.vasudev probably tried 4.150.10.5 but reported "It still dosent work"

d) linchen987 tried experimental firmware only and reported success
for AP, error for STA. Didn't compare to stable firmware.

e) zooloz tried experimental firmware reported success for few hours,
then duplicated "MAC suspend failed" messages. Didn't compare this to
stable firmware.

f) anonymous reported "This still dosent work with the latest build
from trunk.", even after trunk witched to stable firmware as default

g) metamatt posted some reports but he didn't give us direct hint
about firmware version.

So... generally we know nothing :| Not a single straight report about
relation between firmware and stability.

-- 
Rafał