prism 2.5 timeout in wi_cmd 0x010b

[o***@es.net]

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 15:11:04 +0100
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Hi Lorenzo,
can you try the attached patch, it does seem to help on my ThinkPad X30,
which has an internal mini-PCI Prism2.5 card with the same firmware.

Marko,

I just started re-building my kernel with this patch. I have previously
reported this under CURRENT and hope that this might fix the problem. It
has also been reported by several others under slightly different
circumstances. I'll report what I see. It's pretty easy to test...just
copy a multi-megabyte file from my laptop to my workstation over the
wireless.

I'll be interested to hear if Warner has any comments on this.

Thanks!

[z***@tel.fer.hr]

Post by o***@es.net
Marko,
I just started re-building my kernel with this patch. I have
previously reported this under CURRENT and hope that this might fix
the problem. It has also been reported by several others under
slightly different circumstances. I'll report what I see. It's pretty
easy to test...just copy a multi-megabyte file from my laptop to my
workstation over the wireless.

Whoops... it seems that my hack doesn't fix the problem of outgoing
traffic hosing the wi interface - next time I'll do more testing before
making a post. However, without this patch my wi would lock up every
now and than out of the blue, regardless whether it was associated to
an AP or it was disconnected, and regardless whether there was any
traffic flowing through it or not. The same card (Prism 2.5 mini-PCI)
used to play nicely with 4.8-R, and works quite well with M$ also.
There must be something rotten in the recent wi driver...

Cheers,

Marko

[p***@pir.net]

I'll report what I see. It's pretty easy to test...just copy a
multi-megabyte file from my laptop to my workstation over the
wireless.

I've been seeing and reporting that problem too, for a while now.

P.

[o***@es.net]

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:19:08 -0500

I'll report what I see. It's pretty easy to test...just copy a
multi-megabyte file from my laptop to my workstation over the
wireless.

I've been seeing and reporting that problem too, for a while now.

It worked for me! I just copied 850 MB of data at an average transfer
rate of 4.3 Mb/s with no problems. I never came close to this in the
past. I hope Warner can comment on it (and commit it if he does not see
a problem!)

I will at the driver to my default boot to see if it also fixes the
problem of noise on the 2.4G band causing the card to lock up even when
it's not in use. (And pretty much locking up the system at the same
time.) Since this was always very intermittent, I don't know if I will
be able to ever say that it's fixed, but I may be able to say that it's
not! Hopefully other who have seen this (and thee are a LOT of them)
will also give it a try. (That's why I am being bad and cross-posting to
***@.)

Thanks, Marco! This is a big help for a lot of people who have seen this
problem on both Prism and WaveLAN cards.

By the way, the patch for current is at a different location. Here is
the patch for CURRENT:

--- if_wi.c.orig Sat Jan 10 16:26:25 2004QQ
+++ if_wi.c Sat Jan 10 16:28:37 2004
@@ -2403,9 +2403,11 @@
* set in the event status register.
*/
s = CSR_READ_2(sc, WI_EVENT_STAT);
+ DELAY(1);
if (s & WI_EV_CMD) {
/* Ack the event and read result code. */
s = CSR_READ_2(sc, WI_STATUS);
+ DELAY(1);
CSR_WRITE_2(sc, WI_EVENT_ACK, WI_EV_CMD);
if (s & WI_STAT_CMD_RESULT) {
count--;

[i***@bsdimp.com]

In message: <***@cisco.com>
Lorenzo Vicisano <***@vicisano.net> writes:
: However after upgrding the Prism firmware (1.1.0 -> 1.1.1)
: the lock up stopped.

You really really really want to be using 1.4.5 firmware. Older
firmware is known to be buggy.

Warner

[p***@pir.net]

Post by i***@bsdimp.com
You really really really want to be using 1.4.5 firmware. Older
firmware is known to be buggy.

I've got newer firmware but no way to actually upgrade it. IBM doesn;t
supply a meanthod to upgrade to anythig newer than I have installed...

Got an installer ?

P.

[l***@vicisano.net]

Warner,

Post by i***@bsdimp.com
: However after upgrding the Prism firmware (1.1.0 -> 1.1.1)
: the lock up stopped.
You really really really want to be using 1.4.5 firmware. Older
firmware is known to be buggy.

I was referring to the "primary", as for the "station"
I went from 1.4.2 to 1.7.4 .. but does the "station"
firmware affect the functionality as a "client" anyways ?

Lorenzo

[l***@vicisano.net]

Post by p***@pir.net
I've got newer firmware but no way to actually upgrade it. IBM doesn;t
supply a meanthod to upgrade to anythig newer than I have installed...
Got an installer ?

I used the windoze installer and info from
http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism/index.html

Lorenzo

[z***@tel.fer.hr]

same result: the patch doesn't fix the problem.
However after upgrding the Prism firmware (1.1.0 -> 1.1.1)
the lock up stopped.
Still I cannot get more that 2.5Mb/s Tx from the Prism (as a client)
to another client (Aironet). A little better (3 / 3.5) from the Prism
to the AP (DI 614+).

I'd say that 2.5 Mb/s can be considered a pretty good throughput between
two client nodes in an infrastructure-mode environment. Have in mind
that the AP operates as a relay in such a case, so each frame has to be
"on air" twice.

Marko

[p***@pir.net]

Post by l***@vicisano.net
I used the windoze installer and info from
http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism/index.html
On my Prism 2.5 mini-PCI card I managed to upgrade the firmware to
http://linux.junsun.net/intersil-prism/

Thanks for the pointer, guys.

I got my minipci card upgraded fine;

wi0: using RF:PRISM2.5 MAC:ISL3874A(Mini-PCI)
wi0: Intersil Firmware: Primary 1.01.01, Station 1.07.04

Ta,
P.

[p***@pir.net]

Post by p***@pir.net
I got my minipci card upgraded fine;
wi0: using RF:PRISM2.5 MAC:ISL3874A(Mini-PCI)
wi0: Intersil Firmware: Primary 1.01.01, Station 1.07.04

With the firmware upgrade and the patch to if_wi.c to add a couple of
DELAY(1); calls the issues I've been having intermittantly at home
with my prism 2.5 card seem to have completely gone; I havn't had one
problem since, even transferring lots of large file around.

Much happier,
P.

[o***@es.net]

Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 02:54:48 -0500

But anyways, what are the fixes for the errors below? I just hope my card
isn't toast. FYI, I only uploaded P and S.

The only fix I've found for that is firmware 1.7.6 and higher, which
of course doesn't work as a base station under -stable.
There is a small patch floating around which as helped things for
many people - search the archives for DELAY and proxim.

Google for "zec DELAY(1) prism". It's a two line patch to if_wi.c adding
very brief delays after calls to read the CSR2 after a reset attempt.
Seems to make things run very smoothly.

[n***@restricted.dyndns.org]

Post by o***@es.net

There is a small patch floating around which as helped things for
many people - search the archives for DELAY and proxim.

Google for "zec DELAY(1) prism". It's a two line patch to if_wi.c adding
very brief delays after calls to read the CSR2 after a reset attempt.
Seems to make things run very smoothly.

This didn't work for me. :(

Neil