Greetings,
Ever since I installed my MSI-PC54G2 ral(4) PCI card in my OpenBSD 4.3
i386 box running in HostAP mode I've had a weird connectivity issue.
Put simply, connectivity with laptops is very iffy, but desktops are
fine. Symptoms are that connectivity FROM the access point TO the node
is very suspect - ping(8) loses on average 70-80% of packets.
Strangely ping in the other direction is fine. So this manifests
itself in "Web 1.0" connectivity such as news sites, slashdot etc.
being relatively unaffected - as is IMAP, SMTP, etc. - but Web 2.0
connectivity such as Facebook, Gmail, etc. experiences constant
timeouts and is generally unusable.
This seems to affect laptops more then desktops. Running my previous
model Macbook Pro off mains power resolves the issue (but not when
running on batteries) however a friend's current model Macbook suffers
regardless whether it is running off mains or batteries. An iMac G4
and AMD-powered Windows XP machine seem unaffected.
I have replaced the standard antenna with a high-gain antenna which
had some effect on the desktops but not on the laptops.
The only other potentially relevant point I can think to note is that
the AP machine (an old PIII running at 500 Mhz) is PCI 2.1 compliant
(according to the dmesg) whereas the PCI card documentation says it is
PCI 2.2 compliant - could the motherboard's older PCI bus simply not
be up to the job?
I'm out of ideas, otherwise... I'm considering purchasing an ASUS
WL-130N but if the issue is likely the PCI bus rather than the WLAN
adapter I'd rather know before forking out my hard-earned...
Any advice in advance will be appreciated, and dmesg follows:
OpenBSD 4.3 (GENERIC) #0: Tue Aug 5 21:55:39 CST 2008
[email protected]:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
cpu0: Intel Pentium III ("GenuineIntel" 686-class, 512KB L2 cache) 499 MHz
cpu0:
FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXSR,SSE
real mem = 200773632 (191MB)
avail mem = 185966592 (177MB)
mainbus0 at root
bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+ BIOS, date 07/11/02, BIOS32 rev. 0 @
0xfd7b1, SMBIOS rev. 2.3 @ 0xf8386 (38 entries)
bios0: vendor IBM version "PJKT41AUS" date 07/11/2002
bios0: IBM 656345A
apm0 at bios0: Power Management spec V1.2
apm0: AC on, battery charge unknown
acpi at bios0 function 0x0 not configured
pcibios0 at bios0: rev 2.1 @ 0xf0000/0x10000
pcibios0: PCI IRQ Routing Table rev 1.0 @ 0xf1e60/160 (8 entries)
pcibios0: PCI Interrupt Router at 000:02:0 ("VIA VT82C596A ISA" rev 0x00)
pcibios0: PCI bus #1 is the last bus
bios0: ROM list: 0xc0000/0xa000 0xca000/0x1000
cpu0 at mainbus0
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (no bios)
pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 "VIA VT82C691 PCI" rev 0x82
agp0 at pchb0: v2, aperture at 0xec000000, size 0x10000000
ppb0 at pci0 dev 1 function 0 "VIA VT82C598 AGP" rev 0x00
pci1 at ppb0 bus 1
vga1 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 "S3 Savage 4" rev 0x03
wsdisplay0 at vga1 mux 1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay0: screen 1-5 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
pcib0 at pci0 dev 2 function 0 "VIA VT82C596A ISA" rev 0x12
pciide0 at pci0 dev 2 function 1 "VIA VT82C571 IDE" rev 0x06: ATA66,
channel 0 configured to compatibility, channel 1 configured to
compatibility
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <FUJITSU MPE3136AH B4>
wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 12949MB, 26520480 sectors
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 4
atapiscsi0 at pciide0 channel 1 drive 0
scsibus0 at atapiscsi0: 2 targets
cd0 at scsibus0 targ 0 lun 0: <LG, CD-ROM CRD-8400B, 1.12> SCSI0
5/cdrom removable
cd0(pciide0:1:0): using PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2
uhci0 at pci0 dev 2 function 2 "VIA VT83C572 USB" rev 0x08: irq 10
"VIA VT82C596 Power" rev 0x20 at pci0 dev 2 function 3 not configured
fxp0 at pci0 dev 14 function 0 "Intel 8255x" rev 0x08, i82559: irq 9,
address 00:04:ac:8b:51:11
inphy0 at fxp0 phy 1: i82555 10/100 PHY, rev. 4
ral0 at pci0 dev 15 function 0 "Ralink RT2560" rev 0x01: irq 5,
address 00:13:d3:6a:bb:9d
ral0: MAC/BBP RT2560 (rev 0x04), RF RT2525
esa0 at pci0 dev 18 function 0 "ESS ES1989" rev 0x10: irq 9
ac97: codec id 0x45838308 (ESS Technology ES1921)
ac97: codec features 20 bit DAC, 20 bit ADC, ESS Technology
audio0 at esa0
isa0 at pcib0
isadma0 at isa0
pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60/5
pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0
pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
midi0 at pcppi0: <PC speaker>
spkr0 at pcppi0
lpt0 at isa0 port 0x378/4 irq 7
npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0/16: reported by CPUID; using exception 16
pccom0 at isa0 port 0x3f8/8 irq 4: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
pccom0: console
pccom1 at isa0 port 0x2f8/8 irq 3: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0/6 irq 6 drq 2
fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
usb0 at uhci0: USB revision 1.0
uhub0 at usb0 "VIA UHCI root hub" rev 1.00/1.00 addr 1
biomask fd45 netmask ff65 ttymask ffe7
mtrr: Pentium Pro MTRR support
softraid0 at root
root on wd0a swap on wd0b dump on wd0b
Cheers,
Damon
