Re: iwl3945 randomly crashes

[Dan Williams <dcbw@redhat.com>]

On Tue, 2016-12-20 at 18:11 +0100, Łukasz Walewski wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Dec 2016 10:49:52 -0600
> Dan Williams <dcbw@redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > On Tue, 2016-12-20 at 17:24 +0100, Łukasz Walewski wrote:
> > > 
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > I am using the latest Lubuntu 16.10 with fairly recent kernel
> > > 
> > > ljw@hideo:~$ uname -a
> > > Linux hideo 4.8.0-30-generic #32-Ubuntu SMP Fri Dec 2 03:43:33
> > > UTC
> > > 2016 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux
> > > 
> > > on an old Toshiba laptop (Satellite Pro U200) equipped with an
> > > Intel
> > > PRO/Wireless 3945ABG adapter
> > > 
> > > ljw@hideo:~$ lspci | grep ireless
> > > 02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless
> > > 3945ABG
> > > [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)
> > > 
> > > The wireless network crashes once in a while with no apparent
> > > reason
> > > with the following log entries:
> > > 
> > > Dec 18 17:23:42 hideo kernel: [94900.863133] iwl3945
> > > 0000:02:00.0:
> > > loaded firmware version 15.32.2.9
> > > Dec 18 17:23:42 hideo kernel: [94900.913626] iwl3945
> > > 0000:02:00.0:
> > > BSM uCode verification failed at addr 0x00003800+0 (of 900), is
> > > 0xa5a5a5a2, s/b 0xf802020
> > > Dec 18 17:23:42 hideo kernel: [94900.913633] iwl3945
> > > 0000:02:00.0:
> > > Unable to set up bootstrap uCode: -5
> > > 
> > > This problem has been reported several times on different mailing
> > > lists and community portals all over the Internet, nevertheless I
> > > was
> > > not able to locate the right fix for it.
> > > 
> > > The workaround suggested elswhere (restarting the network-manager
> > > when the problem occurs) works with my setup.
> > 
> > Instead of restarting NM, you can "pkill -TERM wpa_supplicant" or
> > something, which will do the same thing but just bounce the wifi
> > rather
> > than everything.  Or 'rmmod iwl3945; modprobe iwl3945'.
> 
> Thanks, but that is just another workaround. I am interested in
> fixing the problem, i.e. getting the driver not to crash at all,
> rather than playing around with it crashing every now and then.

Yeah, I know.  Just pointing out that people often use a huge hammer,
when a much smaller hammer will do.

Dan