Centrino power save problem with HostAP

[larry.leblanc at shaw.ca]

Hello,

I'm working on an access point using Hostap 0.0.4 with a Linksys WPC11 PCMCIA card (STA firmware 1.4.9). This setup works fine with my old laptop using an Orinoco Gold 802.11b card. But I've recently acquired a Centrino laptop and have run into some trouble. Here's the scenario:

- associate the Centrino to the access point using standard WinXP wireless network connection manager.
- attempt to download any large file (i.e. > 1 MB). The download will typically get through the first few hundred KB before grinding to a halt.
- install Intel ProSet wireless client utility, manually configure adapter for "maximum performance" (as opposed to maximum battery life).
- connection works reliably - downloads complete as expected.
- reconfigure adapter for maximum battery life
- connection fails in the same fashion as with standard XP connection manager, i.e. downloads grind to a halt.

Based on the above, I think the problem has something to do with Power Save mode. Has anyone had any experience with Centrino laptops and HostAP? I saw some reports of trouble with Centrino and HostAP on BSD back in March but as far as I can tell from Jouni's response at the time, HostAP should work with power save mode.

I saw something indicating the default beacon interval might cause latency problems in power save mode and so I've tried tweaking that, but to no avail. I'm stumped at this point...

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks,

Larry

P.S. In case it matters, I'm running RH 8.0 distribution and I've upgraded the kernel to 2.4.20.