MA311 refuses to set txpower

[Dan Williams]

On Mon, 2008-03-24 at 19:44 +0100, Paolo wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I just mounted a MA311 Netgear card and flashed with a newer firmware.
> Now i have:
> 
> Downloading to volatile memory (RAM).
> OK.
> Components after download:
>   NICID: 0x8013 v1.0.0
>   PRIID: 0x0015 v1.1.4
>   STAID: 0x001f v1.8.2
> 
> (these are volatile firmwares, i also updated the non volatile firmwares
> to 1.1.1 and 1.8.2 respectively, cause i couldnt find a non volatile
> version of 1.1.4 which suited my card).
> 
> Ok, anyways, i would like to set txpower of my card (to lower it).
> it works fine if i do 
> 
> # iwconfig wlan0 txpower off
> 
> but if i do try to set it, i geterrors like:
> 
> root at rivendell:/local/soft/Hardware/WiFi/Prism2# iwconfig  wlan0
> txpower 3
> Error for wireless request "Set Tx Power" (8B26) :
>     SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
> root at rivendell:/local/soft/Hardware/WiFi/Prism2# iwconfig  wlan0
> txpower 15mW

It looks like the hostap driver doesn't support setting the txpower to
anything but "auto" and "off" in the upstream kernel by default.  There
is some code that would allow dBm setting when RAW_TXPOWER_SETTING is
defined, but that's not turned on upstream for whatever reason.

Dan

> Error for wireless request "Set Tx Power" (8B26) :
>     SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
> root at rivendell:/local/soft/Hardware/WiFi/Prism2# iwconfig  wlan0
> txpower 30
> Error for wireless request "Set Tx Power" (8B26) :
>     SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
> root at rivendell:/local/soft/Hardware/WiFi/Prism2# iwconfig  wlan0
> txpower 1
> Error for wireless request "Set Tx Power" (8B26) :
>     SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
> root at rivendell:/local/soft/Hardware/WiFi/Prism2# iwconfig  wlan0
> txpower 10
> Error for wireless request "Set Tx Power" (8B26) :
>     SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
> root at rivendell:/local/soft/Hardware/WiFi/Prism2# iwconfig  wlan0
> txpower 4
> Error for wireless request "Set Tx Power" (8B26) :
>     SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
> 
> and get no other explainations.. what's the trick?
> 
> thanks,
> Paolo
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