Re: [Ilw] Re: 3.4-rc2, ilwagn still most of the time completely unusable

Alessandro Suardi
2012-07-03T19:35:46Z

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 10:16 AM, Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at> wrote:
> On Do, 28 Jun 2012, Johannes Berg wrote:
>> Somehow your mail didn't make it to the lists, not sure why.
>
> Hmm, yeah, some of the emails were privte exchange with
> Venkataraman and Lin.
>
>> Fun. I don't actually see how this can possibly happen though?!
>
> Hmm, actually I think I have seen similar things quite regularly,
> and reported them also.
>
>> > > > > [ 9457.176828] iwlwifi 0000:06:00.0: ACTIVATE a non DRIVER active
>> > > > >station id 0 addr 00:24:c4:ab:bd:e0
>> >
>> > These messages now appear only now and then.
>>
>> I fixed those recently.
>
> Good.

Just a report to say that I still see those in 3.5.0-rc5.

I recently moved from a Dell Latitude 6400, with a bcm4322 chip managed
by the Broadcom-STA out-of-tree driver (wl module) to the new Latitude 6420,
which has this as per lspci:

02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 (rev 34)

and I have two issues compared to the bcm4322; one is the above message,
which appears when the driver can't associate to my D-Link DSL2740B router;
telnetting into the router and bouncing its AP component via wlctl is enough
to allow the laptop to connect again.
At the same time, my wife's old 32-bit Dell D610 with an ipw2200 connects just
fine to the DSL-2740B.

The second issue is that the wifi speed is much lower with the new 6420 under
iwlwifi - topping out at under 3MB/s compared with peaks of 10MB/s with the
bcm4322's wl driver, which hardly ever went under 6MB/s.

iwconfig wlan0 reports fluctuating bitrates of 18/24/36 Mb/s whereas I could see
very easily 130Mb/s with the wl driver. Maybe something is also due to the fact
that the DSL-2740B has a draft-N implementation and its Broadcom chip has
better feelings with the laptop's Broadcom wl than the iwlwifi.

I'm available for more detailed reporting and testing.

Thanks,

>> You seem to be on 3.5.0-rc now, is that really no different from 3.4?
>
> The feeling is that it is definitely better.
>
> I can actually work now wirelessly, and in case of hangs an rfkill block
> rfkill unblock practically always, and mostly is not needed.
>
> So yes, it is better, definitely.
>
> I think till 3.4 I had to use the cable quite regularly.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Norbert

--alessandro

"don't underestimate the things that I will do"

(Adele, "Rolling In The Deep")