Degradation on b43 14e4:4315 ?

Fri Aug 26 15:09:44 EDT 2011

W dniu 17 czerwca 2011 00:08 użytkownik Rafał Miłecki
<zajec5 at gmail.com> napisał:
> W dniu 16 czerwca 2011 23:23 użytkownik Oncaphillis
> <oncaphillis at snafu.de> napisał:
>> On 06/16/2011 11:22 AM, Rafał Miłecki wrote:
>>>
>>> Hey,
>>>
>>> 2011/6/16 Oncaphillis<oncaphillis at snafu.de>:
>>>>
>>>>  I'm using my b43 14e4:4315 on my acer notebook for quite a while now.
>>>> I've started to use a wireless git-kernel and helped a bit in debugging
>>>> initial problems with this device. Since the early Fedora 14 it seemed to
>>>> work out of the box, but now when Fedora 14 moved to 2.6.35.12+ kernels
>>>> I loose connections on heavy transfer.
>>>
>>> Do you get something interesting from "dmesg | grep b43"?
>>>
>>
>> So I got a vanilla kernel 2.6.35.13 with the .config stolen from the
>> Fedora 14 kernel except that I disabled DNA. On startup dmesg tells
>> me:
>>
>> <snip>
>> [   11.038578] b43-pci-bridge 0000:01:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low)
>> -> IRQ 16
>> [   11.038643] b43-pci-bridge 0000:01:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
>> [   13.725758] b43-phy0: Broadcom 4312 WLAN found (core revision 15)
>> [   13.740378] b43-phy0 debug: Found PHY: Analog 6, Type 5, Revision 1
>> [   13.740448] b43-phy0 debug: Found Radio: Manuf 0x17F, Version 0x2062,
>> Revision 2
>> [   14.024423] Registered led device: b43-phy0::tx
>> [   14.024523] Registered led device: b43-phy0::rx
>> [   14.024613] Registered led device: b43-phy0::radio
>> [   25.399187] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 478.104 (2008-07-01
>> 00:50:23)
>> [   25.401793] b43-phy0 debug: b2062: Using crystal tab entry 19200 kHz.
>> [   25.479462] b43-phy0 debug: Chip initialized
>> [   25.479631] b43-phy0 debug: PIO initialized
>> [   25.479660] b43-phy0 debug: QoS disabled
>> [   25.487963] b43-phy0 debug: Wireless interface started
>> [   25.492355] b43-phy0 debug: Adding Interface type 2
>> </snip>
>
> I guess you chose B43_FORCE_PIO == "Force usage of PIO instead of DMA"?
>
> I suggest you don't select this, but use module parameter instead.
> Don't mess with B43_FORCE_PIO but use:
> rmmod b43; modprobe b43 pio=0
> rmmod b43; modprobe b43 pio=1
>
>
>> And the connection stays stable. But If I do some heavy file transfer
>> I loose connection and dmesg tells me:
>>
>> <snip>
>> [ 7531.098190] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
>> [ 7531.099543] cfg80211: Calling CRDA for country: DE
>> [ 7531.673634] cfg80211: Regulatory domain changed to country: DE
>> [ 7531.673642]     (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain,
>> max_eirp)
>> [ 7531.673650]     (2400000 KHz - 2483500 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm)
>> [ 7531.673656]     (5150000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm)
>> [ 7531.673663]     (5250000 KHz - 5350000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm)
>> [ 7531.673669]     (5470000 KHz - 5725000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2698 mBm)
>> [ 7532.279452] wlan0: authenticate with 00:25:9c:d0:04:fb (try 1)
>> [ 7532.479109] wlan0: authenticate with 00:25:9c:d0:04:fb (try 2)
>> [ 7532.679347] wlan0: authenticate with 00:25:9c:d0:04:fb (try 3)
>> [ 7532.879169] wlan0: authentication with 00:25:9c:d0:04:fb timed out
>> [ 7548.738780] wlan0: direct probe to 00:25:9c:d0:04:fb (try 1)
>> [ 7548.939078] wlan0: direct probe to 00:25:9c:d0:04:fb (try 2)
>> [ 7549.138181] wlan0: direct probe to 00:25:9c:d0:04:fb (try 3)
>> [ 7549.338067] wlan0: direct probe to 00:25:9c:d0:04:fb timed out
>> </snip>
>>
>> No messages from the b43 module though. In order to reanimate wlan
>> I just have to kill wpa_supplicant and do dhclient startup. No
>> removal and reinsert of module necessary. May be I bark up the wrong
>> tree ? And it's wpa_supplicant that does it all wrong ?
>
> Please, try using DMA and provide us dmesg | grep b43 after seeing
> problems. I believe DMA has more advanced debugging implemented.
>
>
>>>> Where there developments during the 2.6.35.x developments which could
>>>> explain such behaviour ?
>>>
>>> Do you mean 2.6.35 was working fine and 2.6.35.12 already contains
>>> regression? Were you using clean 2.6.35 earlier with success?
>>
>> I started up with the wireless git-repo and somewhere since the early
>> Fedora 14 it worked for me with the fedora standard kernel. Throughput could
>> have been better, but I never got such disconnections ever since. Actually I
>> don't know if Fedora 14 started up with kernel 2.6.35 or even earlier.
>
> http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=fedora says kernel
> 2.6.35.6 is default in Fedora. I didn't check for kernel history log
> yet, but I don't believe anything could change between 2.6.35.6 and
> 2.6.35.12 that is important for b43.
>
> After testing "DMA" and providing dmesg | grep b43, I'd like you to
> try switching back to older firmware.
>
> How to install older firmware:
> 1) Move newer firmware to other dir:
> mv /lib/firmware/b43 /lib/firmware/b43-478.104
>
> 2) Download older firmware and install it:
> wget http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
> tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
> sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o

Have you got a chance to do some more testing, debugging?

-- 
Rafał