Bug#586383: Relatively minor Atheros AR242x wireless card light flickering issue with Linux kernel 2.6.32 to 3.5.2 (ath5k driver)
Hi, So there's a hardware MAC LED blink thing that can be done. You may be seeing that enabled by default. Adrian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#586383: Relatively minor Atheros AR242x wireless card light flickering issue with Linux kernel 2.6.32 to 3.5.2 (ath5k driver)
Hi Jonathan. The behaviour is unexpected and it is undesirable because I believe the light should be orange only when pressing the button which disables the device. In the past, the ath5k driver worked at a rate of 1 Mb/s rather than the 54 Mb/s that it’s working at now (as mentioned previously) according to gnome’s network manager applet but I have never noticed anything qualitatively wrong other than the light flicker. Most importantly, long ago, prior to removing the pre-installed copy of Windows Vista, I recall the hardware not behaving like this (and the light was a constant blue when the network was enabled and orange when it was disabled).
Bug#586383: Relatively minor Atheros AR242x wireless card light flickering issue with Linux kernel 2.6.32 to 3.5.2 (ath5k driver)
Hello. This is a continuation of the Debian bug #586383 ( http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=586383 ) filed long ago. As a test run I booted into my system with the latest Linux 3.5.2 kernel. Upon booting, the network activity light is orange only. After selecting the 3.5.2 kernel, while loading, the light remained orange. I think the first moment I noticed that it turned blue was when the udev daemon loaded (this was from looking at what the screen said when the system was loading at the moment I noticed the colour change). After this, I noticed minor flickering and then the light was completely orange again. When gdm3 (the GNOME display manager) started, the light became blue again and stayed blue for a while. Right after logging in, the light turned orange again but perhaps it’s because I wasn’t connected to the Internet. Once I connected to my network, the light flickered at a faster, medium pace and occasionally stayed blue for a long-ish while (many minutes). I think the pattern is that when the data transfers through the wireless card (such as by going to the internet), it activates the flicker when the colour is blue for a long time and if it’s already flickering then, it increases the rate of the flickering. This issue was present for a long time. I remember having it since Debian 5.0 Lenny (with the 2.6.32 kernel) but I’m not sure if that’s when the issue was introduced since, if I recall correctly, I didn’t have this hardware before then. It probably was the first kernel which supported this wireless card since I had upgraded the kernel just for the wireless network and I vaguely remember something of the sort being the case so the issue may have been there from the start of the ath5k driver’s integration to the kernel. This is my wireless card (which is inside the HP G50 laptop) from lscpi: 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x / AR542x Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
Bug#586383: Relatively minor Atheros AR242x wireless card light flickering issue with Linux kernel 2.6.32 to 3.5.2 (ath5k driver)
Hi again, Deniz Akcal wrote: I think the pattern is that when the data transfers through the wireless card (such as by going to the internet), it activates the flicker when the colour is blue for a long time and if it’s already flickering then, it increases the rate of the flickering. Thanks. Quick questions: Is this behavior expected or unexpected? What led you to report it as a bug? Is it desirable or undesirable? Have you been having other problems with the ath5k driver? In principle an LED indicating the rx/tx rate could be a nice thing, but if it is distracting or counterintuitive or related to other problems then not so much. Hence the question. Hope that helps, Jonathan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
