Michael,
I have a 4306 in a 15-inch PowerBook G4 (purchased new, in the US,
in the last week of June 2005).
I'm running vanilla linux-2.6.17-rc5 obtained from kernel.org which
I built myself. The system is Debian etch now, though more than a
week ago I was running Debian sarge, and earlier kernel versions in
the linux-2.6.17-rc? series.
I've not tried to use the wireless much in the last few weeks, for
I do not yet have an access point at home.
In the middle of last month (May 2006) while running Debian sarge
and linux-2.6.17-rc3 (or maybe -rc4) I was traveling and staying in
a home that had an access point, and I discovered that it would
barely work (if at all) from my bedroom there (about 10 or 15
meters away on the same floor), but would work just fine if I sat
on the couch next to the access point. When anywhere other than
within 2 or 3 meters of the access pont, the symptoms were much
like what Mattias is describing. Within 2 or 3 meters from the
access point, it would work very well.
In my bedroom (10 or 15 meters away), if I carefully positioned it
on the table moving it a centimeter or three in various directions
until I found a spot that worked better, then I could use it from
the bedroom, but I would still see some outages and when I tried
pinging the default router I would see DUPs like Mattias reports.
The 15-inch PowerBook has two antennas, one on either side of the
screen. I noticed that covering the left one with my hand would
completely prevent it from working, while covering the right
antenna with my hand never had any effect.
"iwlist eth1 scan" always reported that it had seen the access point
beacon recently (50 to 100 ms). So I came to the conclusion that
the access point is having trouble hearing my computer's
transmissions (since my computer can apparently hear the access
point reliably).
If I booted MacOS X it would work just fine from anywhere in the
house, including much further away. And while I could sometimes
interfere with pinging a little bit by gripping the screen with
both hands (covering both antennas), leaving either antenna
uncovered while covering the other as best I could with my hand
would always leave the pinging solid.
I believe the access point was supporting both 802.11B and 802.11G.
I did not think to try restricting the bcm43xx to one mode or the
other, or set it to a lower speed (which sometimes helps with
madwifi interfaces). I'm not sure yet how to do that with this
driver.
I think the problem is feeble transmissions (or transmissions that
for some reason only work when I'm very near the access point), and
perhaps not making use of both antennas (since only covering the
left antenna had any effect at all).
Below is some more info about my computer and kernel.
I cannot really do any more experiments until I get an access point,
or unless I'm away from home and have one nearby that I can use.
I hope this report helps with improving the bcm43xx driver.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this driver.
-Tim Shepard
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
bash<5>$ lspci
0000:00:0b.0 Host bridge: Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth 2 AGP
0000:00:10.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility
Radeon 9600 M10]
0001:10:0b.0 Host bridge: Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth 2 PCI
0001:10:12.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g
Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)
0001:10:13.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1510 PC card Cardbus
Controller
0001:10:17.0 ff00: Apple Computer Inc. KeyLargo/Intrepid Mac I/O
0001:10:19.0 USB Controller: Apple Computer Inc. KeyLargo/Intrepid USB
0001:10:1a.0 USB Controller: Apple Computer Inc. KeyLargo/Intrepid USB
0001:10:1b.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
0001:10:1b.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
0001:10:1b.2 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 04)
0002:24:0b.0 Host bridge: Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth 2 Internal PCI
0002:24:0d.0 ff00: Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth/Intrepid ATA/100
0002:24:0e.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth 2 FireWire (rev
81)
0002:24:0f.0 Ethernet controller: Apple Computer Inc. UniNorth 2 GMAC (Sun GEM)
(rev 80)
bash<6>$ dmesg | grep bcm43xx
bcm43xx driver
bcm43xx: Chip ID 0x4306, rev 0x3
bcm43xx: Number of cores: 5
bcm43xx: Core 0: ID 0x800, rev 0x4, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 1: ID 0x812, rev 0x5, vendor 0x4243, disabled
bcm43xx: Core 2: ID 0x80d, rev 0x2, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 3: ID 0x807, rev 0x2, vendor 0x4243, disabled
bcm43xx: Core 4: ID 0x804, rev 0x9, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Detected PHY: Version: 2, Type 2, Revision 2
bcm43xx: Detected Radio: ID: 2205017f (Manuf: 17f Ver: 2050 Rev: 2)
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bash<7>$ lsmod
Module Size Used by
snd_powermac 50908 0
snd_pcm_oss 50816 0
snd_mixer_oss 22112 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 103588 2 snd_powermac,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer 27140 1 snd_pcm
snd 70132 5
snd_powermac,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 11396 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 11432 1 snd_pcm
joydev 11936 0
appletouch 9216 0
usbhid 65124 0
evdev 12480 7
tsdev 9056 0
bcm43xx 438352 0
ieee80211softmac 32384 1 bcm43xx
ohci_hcd 24452 0
ehci_hcd 37224 0
bash<8>$ cat /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease
2.6.17-rc5
bash<9>$
(Let me know if any other info would be helpful.)
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