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Old 15th June 2008
sim
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Unhappy wpa_supplicant: atheros up & down like a yo-yo, interrupt storms too

Hi

First post since moving from BSDForums...

I have a new FreeBSD 7.0 STABLE build on my Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop, retro-fitted with an Atheros 5212 wifi card. As soon as I start wpa_supplicant I get this in .../messages:


...
...
Jun 15 23:03:03 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to DOWN
Jun 15 23:03:06 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to UP
Jun 15 23:03:08 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to DOWN
Jun 15 23:07:15 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to UP
Jun 15 23:07:18 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to DOWN
Jun 15 23:07:19 aurora kernel: interrupt storm detected on "irq9:"; throttling interrupt source
Jun 15 23:07:21 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to UP
Jun 15 23:07:24 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to DOWN
Jun 15 23:07:26 aurora kernel: interrupt storm detected on "irq9:"; throttling interrupt source
Jun 15 23:07:26 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to UP
Jun 15 23:07:29 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to DOWN
Jun 15 23:07:32 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to UP
Jun 15 23:07:35 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to DOWN
Jun 15 23:07:35 aurora kernel: interrupt storm detected on "irq9:"; throttling interrupt source
Jun 15 23:07:37 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to UP
Jun 15 23:07:40 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to DOWN
Jun 15 23:07:40 aurora kernel: interrupt storm detected on "irq9:"; throttling interrupt source
Jun 15 23:07:42 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to UP
Jun 15 23:07:45 aurora kernel: ath0: link state changed to DOWN
...
...


Continually checking ifconfig ath0 shows that the connection associates for a few seconds then drops and scans various alternative channels before eventually associating then dropping again, ad infinitum.

Running wpa_supplicant manually just generates an endless stream of stuff.

Any suggestions to help solve or isolate the problem? Curiously WPA worked on this exact hardware without any problem when I previously tried PCBSD 1.4 (FreeBSD 6.2, I believe).

Many thanks,

sim

------
Some more info:

From vmstat -i

interrupt total rate
irq0: clk 3312381 999
irq1: atkbd0 6557 1
irq7: ppbus0 ppc0 1 0
irq8: rtc 423941 127
irq9: pcm0 ath0+ 604133 182
irq11: cbb0 bfe0+* 231910 70
irq12: psm0 9 0
irq14: ata0 13576 4
irq15: ata1 26120 7
Total 4618628 1394



From dmesg.boot:

ath0: <Atheros 5212> mem 0xfafe0000-0xfafeffff irq 9 at device 3.0 on pci2
ath0: [ITHREAD]
ath0: using obsoleted if_watchdog interface
ath0: Ethernet address: 00:11:f5:8c:e6:7e
ath0: mac 7.8 phy 4.5 radio 5.6


uname -a:

FreeBSD aurora 7.0-STABLE FreeBSD 7.0-STABLE #0: Sat Jun 14 20:27:24 BST 2008 root@aurora:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/AURORA i386

Last edited by sim; 15th June 2008 at 10:33 PM. Reason: Typo due to massive fatigue
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Old 16th June 2008
Dazhelpwiz Dazhelpwiz is offline
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does it do the same if you use GENERIC?
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Old 16th June 2008
kazcor kazcor is offline
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Had the same problem some time ago. Please keep us up to date if you managed to fix it.
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Old 17th June 2008
sim
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dazhelpwiz View Post
does it do the same if you use GENERIC?
Thanks, yeah just built GENERIC today with the same /src revision. Same problem.

Strange thing is, when testing FreeBSD 7-RC on a totally different PC (nForce2 mobo) I had exactly the same problem with the onboard nVidia LAN (nfe). Never solved that either. So I have to wonder, why do I get this on two completely unrelated setups, and yet there doesn't seem to be many other people reporting it?

sim
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Old 18th June 2008
davidgurvich davidgurvich is offline
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I have the same issue with a 5212 card. I wasn't able to get it to work reliably with 6.x, unlike you. There do appear to be changes in ath_hal and ath in the code for 8.0 . You might want to see if that works better.
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Old 18th June 2008
Dazhelpwiz Dazhelpwiz is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by davidgurvich View Post
I have the same issue with a 5212 card. I wasn't able to get it to work reliably with 6.x, unlike you. There do appear to be changes in ath_hal and ath in the code for 8.0 . You might want to see if that works better.
it may, I have found a few posts of ppl running 8.0 with the same issue. Its a bit hit and miss I think.

you could try updating your HAL src from madwifi drivers or sam's revised linux drivers and recompiling your kernel, but even thats hit and miss depending.
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