On 03/13/2013 10:40 AM, William of BHE wrote:
Is your machine dropping the connection, or is your router's wireless
crashing? From the log section you posted, it looks like your AP's radio
is going offline.
Ath9K wireless cards are known to cause problems when combined with
certain linux-based routers --such as the Buffalo WHR* dd-wrt based
routers-- also running Atheros chipsets.
I ran into this problem about a year ago. It was real fun tracking the
problem down as it was caused by a laptop I only use when my workstation
is unavailable. I got snowed with work while rebuilding my workstation
and switched to my laptop exclusively for several months; magically, the
previously stable Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N router (with an Atheros chip)
running DD-WRT began randomly dropping all wireless connections and
required a power-cycle to turn the radio back on.
Since nothing had changed from my perspective --I had used the laptop on
the network before, but not as extensively-- it took some effort to
pinpoint the problem. Replacing the laptop's ath9k wireless card with an
inexpensive Intel, and throwing out most of my USB Wireless-N adapters
(many are Atheros based) fixed the issue.
I've only heard of the issue when the client machine is running MS Win
7x64 with the 'right' version of updated drivers combined an Atheros
based router with the 'right' set of DDWRT firmware, and large file
transfers by the client over the local wireless network. If you haven't
updated the driver in your Windows 7 box to the problem driver version,
and/or aren't transferring large files (DVD ISO's, etc) the router won't
display the problem behavior. I suppose the true moral of the story is:
don't buy Qualcomm chips, and when possible replace devices that use them?
Here's one of the links that helped me:
http://kinglee.blogspot.com/2010/07/buffalo-whr-hp-g300n-wireless-drop-on.html
Moving away from whatever firmware you're running on your router might
fix the issue. I replaced my laptop's wireless nic with an intel, and
tossed my Atheros based USB wireless adapters and am very happy. Best of
all, the Intel wireless NIC has pretty good bluetooth built in.
Can you send us sterilized sections of your router logs?
Ok, so I'm having a bit of a play... I installed the latest version of
OpenWRT on the WRT54GS. It seems to have newer wireless tools etc -
which is good.
On the AP, now I can also run 'iw event -t' to get a list of over the
air events. This is a good thing.
So, I fire up the eeepc, then connect to wifi. I see:
PC: 1363162479.614010: wlan0 (phy #0): scan started
PC: 1363162480.658977: wlan0 (phy #0): scan finished: 2412 2417 2422
2427 2432 2437 2442 2447 2452 2457 2462 2467 2472 2484, "www.crc.id.au" ""
PC: 1363162480.666425: wlan0: unknown event 19
PC: 1363162480.670090: wlan0 (phy #0): auth 00:0f:66:c5:2d:6b ->
1c:4b:d6:98:14:48 status: 0: Successful
PC: 1363162480.681813: wlan0 (phy #0): assoc 00:0f:66:c5:2d:6b ->
1c:4b:d6:98:14:48 status: 0: Successful
PC: 1363162480.681934: wlan0 (phy #0): connected to 00:0f:66:c5:2d:6b
PC: 1363162480.690984: phy #0: regulatory domain change: set to AU by a
country IE request on phy0
AP: 1363162480.664628: wlan0: new station 1c:4b:d6:98:14:48
The connection is then up and running, everything is fine.
I see the occasional scan on the client to see what access points are
available, but nothing out of the norm. When the scan happens, I see:
PC: 1363162775.007042: wlan0 (phy #0): scan started
PC: 1363162778.401944: wlan0 (phy #0): scan finished: 2412 2417 2422
2427 2432 2437 2442 2447 2452 2457 2462 2467 2472, "www.crc.id.au" ""
PC: 1363162778.408917: wlan0 (phy #0): unknown event 64
AP: 1363162778.387831: wlan0 (phy #0): mgmt TX status (cookie 81aaf3a0):
acked
Now I just started a ping flood to the default route to get some data
transferring over the wifi connection... Then the drop happens:
PC: 1363163093.220730: wlan0: unknown event 20
PC: 1363163093.226083: wlan0 (phy #0): deauth 1c:4b:d6:98:14:48 ->
00:0f:66:c5:2d:6b reason 3: Deauthenticated because sending station is
leaving (or has left) the IBSS or ESS
PC: 1363163093.226269: wlan0 (phy #0): disconnected (local request)
PC: 1363163093.245360: phy #0: regulatory domain change: set to world
roaming by the wireless core upon initialization request
PC: 1363163093.267507: regulatory domain change: set to AU by a user request
PC: 1363163096.118844: wlan0 (phy #0): scan started
PC: 1363163097.158025: wlan0 (phy #0): scan finished: 2412 2417 2422
2427 2432 2437 2442 2447 2452 2457 2462 2467 2472 2484, "www.crc.id.au" ""
PC: 1363163097.166270: wlan0: unknown event 19
PC: 1363163097.171232: wlan0 (phy #0): auth 00:0f:66:c5:2d:6b ->
1c:4b:d6:98:14:48 status: 0: Successful
PC: 1363163097.178622: wlan0 (phy #0): assoc 00:0f:66:c5:2d:6b ->
1c:4b:d6:98:14:48 status: 0: Successful
PC: 1363163097.178809: wlan0 (phy #0): connected to 00:0f:66:c5:2d:6b
PC: 1363163097.183989: phy #0: regulatory domain change: set to AU by a
country IE request on phy0
AP: 1363163093.232867: wlan0: del station 1c:4b:d6:98:14:48
AP: 1363163096.218316: wlan0 (phy #0): mgmt TX status (cookie 80de90e0):
acked
AP: 1363163096.285290: wlan0 (phy #0): mgmt TX status (cookie 80dff440):
no ack
AP: 1363163096.342560: wlan0 (phy #0): mgmt TX status (cookie 80dff440):
no ack
AP: 1363163097.172129: wlan0 (phy #0): mgmt TX status (cookie 80dcef00):
acked
AP: 1363163097.179453: wlan0 (phy #0): mgmt TX status (cookie 80dcef00):
acked
AP: 1363163097.222866: wlan0: new station 1c:4b:d6:98:14:48
So, as far as the access point goes, it seems the client disassociates
itself, then associates again.
The PC seems think that the access point has gone away, and disconnects.
Strange.
--
Steven Haigh
Email: net...@crc.id.au
Web: https://www.crc.id.au
Phone: (03) 9001 6090 - 0412 935 897
Fax: (03) 8338 0299
