Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
On 2010-04-07, russell wrote: > > Speaking of which, I would love to test patches for the ath 5424, be > awesome if I could use the internal radio.. > sure, go ahead. see the tech@ list archives for mail from Luis Henriques.
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
On Wed, 07 Apr 2010 07:18 -0600, "Daniel Melameth" wrote: > On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 7:04 AM, Stuart Henderson > wrote: > > The newest ones that I've had personal experience of being problem- > > free in AP mode are the old PRISM cards (when running suitable firmware > > on them) and one specific model of ath(4) (the one IBM used to use in > > some Thinkpads)... > > The only AP that every worked reliably for me was the venerable 11b > wi(4). > > > I've had reasonable success with RT2860 ral(4) and acx(4) but there > > have been some problems. RF performance of the 2.4GHz RT2860 has been > > really good for me, but there are still problems, I have to ifconfig > > down+up from cron to avoid the worst of the hangs on some AP dealing > > with a wider range of clients (probably the same as you see e.g. > > client associates but doesn't get working network access).. acx(4) > > are near impossible to obtain without ripping them from a commercial > > AP (and there they aren't widely used any more) and RF performance > > isn't so good but they were working a bit more reliably for me. > > So with heavy heart I had to resort to commercial boxes in some places... > > I concur with this completely. I have used over a half dozen > different pieces of hardware in an attempt to find a stable AP > solution on OpenBSD--and have worked with a couple developers to track > down and fix various bugs--but I was never able to achieve this. If > you want a stable AP, that'll work with varied clients, you will > likely not find it in OpenBSD at this time. Me too. Went to the Penguin! Felt bad about it, but now have a stable AP.
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 7:04 AM, Stuart Henderson wrote: > The newest ones that I've had personal experience of being problem- > free in AP mode are the old PRISM cards (when running suitable firmware > on them) and one specific model of ath(4) (the one IBM used to use in > some Thinkpads)... The only AP that every worked reliably for me was the venerable 11b wi(4). > I've had reasonable success with RT2860 ral(4) and acx(4) but there > have been some problems. RF performance of the 2.4GHz RT2860 has been > really good for me, but there are still problems, I have to ifconfig > down+up from cron to avoid the worst of the hangs on some AP dealing > with a wider range of clients (probably the same as you see e.g. > client associates but doesn't get working network access).. acx(4) > are near impossible to obtain without ripping them from a commercial > AP (and there they aren't widely used any more) and RF performance > isn't so good but they were working a bit more reliably for me. > So with heavy heart I had to resort to commercial boxes in some places... I concur with this completely. I have used over a half dozen different pieces of hardware in an attempt to find a stable AP solution on OpenBSD--and have worked with a couple developers to track down and fix various bugs--but I was never able to achieve this. If you want a stable AP, that'll work with varied clients, you will likely not find it in OpenBSD at this time.
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
On 2010-04-07, corey clingo wrote: > On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 6:07 PM, Stuart Henderson wrote: >> In gmane.os.openbsd.misc, you wrote: >>> Anyway, I'm looking for suggestions on how to proceed in >>> troubleshooting this. >> >> I would try another OS with as different a driver as possible >> (e.g. probably Linux). >> >> > > True, but if I put that much time into it I'd probably load that > alternate OS onto an external access point and be done with it. It depends whether you're trying to track down the problem (i.e. whether it's a driver or hardware problem) or just want a working AP. > I am curious, though, what brands of wifi cards OpenBSD folks use for > APs. From when I was investigating this a year or so ago the ral > cards (per the man pages) were about the only ones without some sort > of caveat in AP mode. The newest ones that I've had personal experience of being problem- free in AP mode are the old PRISM cards (when running suitable firmware on them) and one specific model of ath(4) (the one IBM used to use in some Thinkpads)... I've had reasonable success with RT2860 ral(4) and acx(4) but there have been some problems. RF performance of the 2.4GHz RT2860 has been really good for me, but there are still problems, I have to ifconfig down+up from cron to avoid the worst of the hangs on some AP dealing with a wider range of clients (probably the same as you see e.g. client associates but doesn't get working network access).. acx(4) are near impossible to obtain without ripping them from a commercial AP (and there they aren't widely used any more) and RF performance isn't so good but they were working a bit more reliably for me. So with heavy heart I had to resort to commercial boxes in some places...
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
>I am curious, though, what brands of wifi cards OpenBSD folks use for >APs. From when I was investigating this a year or so ago the ral >cards (per the man pages) were about the only ones without some sort >of caveat in AP mode. yep, ral(4) works quite well for me ifconfig ral0 ral0: flags=8843 mtu 1500 lladdr 00:0e:3b:08:45:41 groups: wlan media: IEEE802.11 autoselect mode 11g hostap status: active ieee80211: nwid bervix_castor chan 8 bssid 00:0e:3b:08:45:41 100dBm dmesg snip cardslot0 at cbb0 slot 0 flags 0 cardbus0 at cardslot0: bus 2 device 0 cacheline 0x8, lattimer 0x20 pcmcia0 at cardslot0 biomask f355 netmask f775 ttymask f7ff mtrr: K6-family MTRR support (2 registers) softraid0 at root root on wd0a swap on wd0b dump on wd0b ral0 at cardbus0 dev 0 function 0 "Ralink RT2560" rev 0x01: irq 12, address 00:0e:3b:08:45:41 ral0: MAC/BBP RT2560 (rev 0x04), RF RT2525 I have two different pcmcia ral(4) cards that work great in hostap mode and a rum(4) usb radio that tries(no errors) but people have trouble connecting. I bought a couple mini pci ath cards to go with a pcengine board that was going to replace my AP(currently a old ibm aptiva with a pcmcia card) but they turned out to be ath 2413 and they don't quite work right. I am sure it will only take a minor tweak to get them going but I have never got around to it. My other ath card, a 5424 in a eeepc 701, does not work ether, I am thinking that would take a little more work to get going however. Speaking of which, I would love to test patches for the ath 5424, be awesome if I could use the internal radio..
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
Some more info: 1. I checked the PSU with it plugged into a 5-ohm dummy load, and into the Soekris. With the dummy load, the voltage fell to 11.5 volts -- pretty crappy regulation, but still well within the Soekris' specs. The dummy load is drawing over 2A at that voltage. In the Soekris, the PSU puts out right at 12V. I even put a scope on it to check for ripple, but it was minimal. 2. The SparkLAN ral card gets a little warm while running, but not bad. I switched it to the miniPCI slot with no discernable (to the back of my hand) difference in temperature, though what effect it had on the Soekris I don't know. Didn't seem to affect anything, though, at least for the two days I ran it that way. I moved it back to the PCI carrier card, which is completely passive as I expected. 3. I started having difficulty getting my Windows 7 laptop to connect at all. It would associate, but not get an IP, and dhcpd on the Soekris saw/logged nothing. I thought back to the anomaly I saw in the ifconfig output, where it said the card was in "11a" mode but operating on channel 11, in the 2.4 GHz band (a "g" channel). After reading the ral man page I tried forcing it to "11g" mode with a "mode 11g" in the hostname.ral0; after I did that, the laptop connected fine. Why it worked before in that "disjoint" mode I don't know. Maybe that was the problem all along; I'll follow up in a few days to help future Googlers. [Side note: I tried using "11a" mode, but the transmit power appears to be very weak with this card on a couple of different 11a channels I tried, at least relative to an access point I used to have. It's a disappointment, since being able to use the uncluttered 5 GHz band is one reason I bought this dual-band card.] I'll wrap this up with a final shout out to the OpenBSD devs. I had to fix a relative's Dell Mini 9 netbook running Ubuntu over the last few days, and had to get dirty at the command line because all of Ubuntu's "user-friendliness" couldn't make up for Dell's poor choice of vendors for some of its hardware. All the myriad configuration files, ifconfig/iwconfig/wpa_supplicant BS, and flakiness of the Mini's Broadcom wifi card and its proprietary driver made OpenBSD's simple, ifconfig-does-everything approach shine all the more brightly.
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 6:07 PM, Stuart Henderson wrote: > In gmane.os.openbsd.misc, you wrote: >> Anyway, I'm looking for suggestions on how to proceed in >> troubleshooting this. > > I would try another OS with as different a driver as possible > (e.g. probably Linux). > > True, but if I put that much time into it I'd probably load that alternate OS onto an external access point and be done with it. I am curious, though, what brands of wifi cards OpenBSD folks use for APs. From when I was investigating this a year or so ago the ral cards (per the man pages) were about the only ones without some sort of caveat in AP mode. Corey
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 12:06 PM, FRLinux wrote: > On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 5:03 AM, Corey wrote: >> I saw them, yes. Soekris Engineering says the net5501 itself draws 20W max. >> My power supply is rated for 40W. I doubt that little miniPCI card draws >> 20 watts. > > Yes, but how many amps? > > Steph > The PSU is 12V, so from basic DC circuit theory, 40W / 12V = 3.333A. The power supply tag backs up Ohm's law and says 3.34A. The Soekris spec lists watts, too, but if you don't have one of these units you may not of course know the PSU voltage. It is some no-name Chinese PSU, but the ratings at least are plenty beefy for my setup I would think (there's nothing else in the Soekris). Like I said, I'll do some basic electrical checks once I get it apart again. Corey
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 1:06 PM, FRLinux wrote: > On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 5:03 AM, Corey wrote: >> I saw them, yes. Soekris Engineering says the net5501 itself draws 20W > max. >> My power supply is rated for 40W. I doubt that little miniPCI card draws >> 20 watts. > > Yes, but how many amps? > > Steph > > I had power issues with my net5501-70. I threw away the crappy psu that came with it and replaced with an netgear I had laying around 12V 1.2 amp. The 5501 has hifn card and dual port gig pci card. I would direct this to soekris ML.
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 5:03 AM, Corey wrote: > I saw them, yes. Soekris Engineering says the net5501 itself draws 20W max. > My power supply is rated for 40W. I doubt that little miniPCI card draws > 20 watts. Yes, but how many amps? Steph
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
On 04/01/2010 04:43 PM, FRLinux wrote: On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 4:34 AM, corey clingo wrote: Reposting this, as I posted Friday evening when fewer people were probably reading and haven't heard anything. If that's not the reason, then sorry for the noise. Hello, have you looked at the ML posts? Which power supply are you running? Chances are it is not beefy enough for it. Cheers, Steph I saw them, yes. Soekris Engineering says the net5501 itself draws 20W max. My power supply is rated for 40W. I doubt that little miniPCI card draws 20 watts. This weekend if I get time I'll move the card to the miniPCI slot in the Soekris, as a shot in the dark. Right now it's in one of those PCI carrier cards so I could drill holes in the metal stab for the antenna cables. While it's apart I may poke around with the Fluke to rule out PS issues, but I doubt that's it. I had another gentleman with the exact same setup email me privately that he was having the exact same problem. He has turned on the watchdog to get around it -- which I have done as well, since the kernel is not invoking ddb when this happens. Regards, Corey
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 4:34 AM, corey clingo wrote: > Reposting this, as I posted Friday evening when fewer people were > probably reading and haven't heard anything. If that's not the > reason, then sorry for the noise. Hello, have you looked at the ML posts? Which power supply are you running? Chances are it is not beefy enough for it. Cheers, Steph
Re: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
Reposting this, as I posted Friday evening when fewer people were
probably reading and haven't heard anything. If that's not the
reason, then sorry for the noise.
-- Forwarded message --
From: Corey
Date: Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 8:23 PM
Subject: Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
To: misc@openbsd.org
I'm having trouble with my Soekris net5501 home router (and now wifi
access point) locking up. Prior to installing the wifi I had it
running various snapshots for about 6 months, no problem. (My wifi at
that time was a separate Linksys WRT54GS running Tomato.)
I had wanted to toy with integrating the wifi into the Soekris, so I
bought a Sparklan WMIR-200N a/g/n card based on the Ralink 2860+2850
chips. I sat on it for awhile, but recently I loaned my Linksys to
some friends in need and decided to grab a January snapshot and give
it a go.
It worked fine for a week or so, but then I began experiencing hard
lockups - no serial console, no ddb, no wired or wifi network access,
nothing. It seems to only happen when the wifi is being used, though
not necessarily heavily, and at random times -- a couple days to a
week between incidents. A power-off of the Soekris is required to
reset it, and after that everything is fine, for awhile.
I loaded a March 17th snap, hoping for the best, and removed my custom
read-only/writes-to-ramdisk filesystem setup in favor of a vanilla
install to CF. No luck; it has locked up twice since then.
Anyway, I'm looking for suggestions on how to proceed in
troubleshooting this. I realize it could be bad hardware -- wifi card
I guess, since the Soekris worked fine before that. The card is less
than a year old, and unfortunately I don't have another computer with
miniPCI to try it in.
Thanks in advance for any and all input. If you need any more info let me
know.
Corey
p.s. one weird thing is the way ifconfig says it's in "11a" mode when
I have chosen channel 11 (802.11g), and the clients see it as g. The
802.11a never worked very well with this card.
# cat /etc/hostname.ral0
inet 172.31.2.1 255.255.255.0 NONE -inet6 media autoselect mediaopt hostap \
nwid soekris chan 11 wpa wpaciphers ccmp wpagroupcipher ccmp \
wpaprotos wpa2 wpapsk \
0x7a52611d1f4df429133fc39094953233b56d968222366b9774b3
# ifconfig ral0
ral0: flags=8843 mtu 1500
lladdr 00:0e:8e:20:82:9f
priority: 4
groups: wlan
media: IEEE802.11 autoselect hostap (autoselect mode 11a hostap)
status: active
ieee80211: nwid soekris chan 11 bssid 00:0e:8e:20:82:9f wpapsk
0x7a52611d1f4df429133fc39094953233b56d968222366b9774b3
wpaprotos wpa2 wpaakms psk wpaciphers ccmp wpagroupcipher ccmp
inet 172.31.2.1 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 172.31.2.255
# dmesg
OpenBSD 4.7 (GENERIC) #558: Wed Mar 17 20:46:15 MDT 2010
dera...@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
cpu0: Geode(TM) Integrated Processor by AMD PCS ("AuthenticAMD"
586-class) 500 MHz
cpu0: FPU,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,CX8,SEP,PGE,CMOV,CFLUSH,MMX
real mem = 536440832 (511MB)
avail mem = 511062016 (487MB)
mainbus0 at root
bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+ BIOS, date 20/80/26, BIOS32 rev. 0 @ 0xfac40
pcibios0 at bios0: rev 2.0 @ 0xf/0x1
pcibios0: pcibios_get_intr_routing - function not supported
pcibios0: PCI IRQ Routing information unavailable.
pcibios0: PCI bus #0 is the last bus
bios0: ROM list: 0xc8000/0xa800
cpu0 at mainbus0: (uniprocessor)
amdmsr0 at mainbus0
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (bios)
io address conflict 0x6100/0x100
io address conflict 0x6200/0x200
pchb0 at pci0 dev 1 function 0 "AMD Geode LX" rev 0x31
glxsb0 at pci0 dev 1 function 2 "AMD Geode LX Crypto" rev 0x00: RNG AES
vr0 at pci0 dev 6 function 0 "VIA VT6105M RhineIII" rev 0x96: irq 11,
address 00:00:24:c8:b2:74
ukphy0 at vr0 phy 1: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface, rev. 3: OUI
0x004063, model 0x0034
vr1 at pci0 dev 7 function 0 "VIA VT6105M RhineIII" rev 0x96: irq 5,
address 00:00:24:c8:b2:75
ukphy1 at vr1 phy 1: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface, rev. 3: OUI
0x004063, model 0x0034
vr2 at pci0 dev 8 function 0 "VIA VT6105M RhineIII" rev 0x96: irq 9,
address 00:00:24:c8:b2:76
ukphy2 at vr2 phy 1: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface, rev. 3: OUI
0x004063, model 0x0034
vr3 at pci0 dev 9 function 0 "VIA VT6105M RhineIII" rev 0x96: irq 12,
address 00:00:24:c8:b2:77
ukphy3 at vr3 phy 1: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface, rev. 3: OUI
0x004063, model 0x0034
ral0 at pci0 dev 14 function 0 "Ralink RT2860" rev 0x00: irq 10,
address 00:0e:8e:20:82:9f
ral0: MAC/BBP RT2860 (rev 0x0102), RF RT2850 (MIMO 2T3R)
glxpcib0 at pci0 dev 20 function 0 "AMD CS5536 ISA" rev 0x03: rev 3,
32-bit 3579545Hz timer, watchdog, gpio
gpio0 at glxpcib0: 32 pins
pciide0 at pci0 dev 20 function 2 "AMD CS5536 IDE" rev 0x01: DMA,
channel 0
Soekris net5501 locks up with Ralink 2860 miniPCI
I'm having trouble with my Soekris net5501 home router (and now wifi
access point) locking up. Prior to installing the wifi I had it running
various snapshots for about 6 months, no problem. (My wifi at that time
was a separate Linksys WRT54GS running Tomato.)
I had wanted to toy with integrating the wifi into the Soekris, so I
bought a Sparklan WMIR-200N a/g/n card based on the Ralink 2860+2850
chips. I sat on it for awhile, but recently I loaned my Linksys to some
friends in need and decided to grab a January snapshot and give it a go.
It worked fine for a week or so, but then I began experiencing hard
lockups - no serial console, no ddb, no wired or wifi network access,
nothing. It seems to only happen when the wifi is being used, though
not necessarily heavily, and at random times -- a couple days to a week
between incidents. A power-off of the Soekris is required to reset it,
and after that everything is fine.
I loaded a March 17th snap, hoping for the best, and removed my custom
read-only/write-to-ramdisk disk setup in favor of a vanilla install to
CF. No luck; it has locked up twice since then.
Anyway, I'm looking for suggestions on how to proceed in troubleshooting
this. I realize it could be bad hardware -- wifi card I guess, since
the Soekris worked fine before that. The card is less than a year old,
and unfortunately I don't have another computer with miniPCI to try it in.
Thanks in advance for any and all input. If you need any more info let
me know.
Corey
p.s. one weird thing is the way ifconfig says it's in "11a" mode when I
have chosen channel 11 (802.11g), and the clients see it as g. The
802.11a never worked very well with this card.
# cat /etc/hostname.ral0
inet 172.31.2.1 255.255.255.0 NONE -inet6 media autoselect mediaopt hostap \
nwid soekris chan 11 wpa wpaciphers ccmp wpagroupcipher ccmp \
wpaprotos wpa2 wpapsk \
0x7a52611d1f4df429133fc39094953233b56d968222366b9774b3
# ifconfig ral0
ral0: flags=8843 mtu 1500
lladdr 00:0e:8e:20:82:9f
priority: 4
groups: wlan
media: IEEE802.11 autoselect hostap (autoselect mode 11a hostap)
status: active
ieee80211: nwid soekris chan 11 bssid 00:0e:8e:20:82:9f wpapsk
0x7a52611d1f4df429133fc39094953233b56d968222366b9774b3
wpaprotos wpa2 wpaakms psk wpaciphers ccmp wpagroupcipher ccmp
inet 172.31.2.1 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 172.31.2.255
# dmesg
OpenBSD 4.7 (GENERIC) #558: Wed Mar 17 20:46:15 MDT 2010
dera...@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
cpu0: Geode(TM) Integrated Processor by AMD PCS ("AuthenticAMD"
586-class) 500 MHz
cpu0: FPU,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,CX8,SEP,PGE,CMOV,CFLUSH,MMX
real mem = 536440832 (511MB)
avail mem = 511062016 (487MB)
mainbus0 at root
bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+ BIOS, date 20/80/26, BIOS32 rev. 0 @ 0xfac40
pcibios0 at bios0: rev 2.0 @ 0xf/0x1
pcibios0: pcibios_get_intr_routing - function not supported
pcibios0: PCI IRQ Routing information unavailable.
pcibios0: PCI bus #0 is the last bus
bios0: ROM list: 0xc8000/0xa800
cpu0 at mainbus0: (uniprocessor)
amdmsr0 at mainbus0
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (bios)
io address conflict 0x6100/0x100
io address conflict 0x6200/0x200
pchb0 at pci0 dev 1 function 0 "AMD Geode LX" rev 0x31
glxsb0 at pci0 dev 1 function 2 "AMD Geode LX Crypto" rev 0x00: RNG AES
vr0 at pci0 dev 6 function 0 "VIA VT6105M RhineIII" rev 0x96: irq 11,
address 00:00:24:c8:b2:74
ukphy0 at vr0 phy 1: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface, rev. 3: OUI
0x004063, model 0x0034
vr1 at pci0 dev 7 function 0 "VIA VT6105M RhineIII" rev 0x96: irq 5,
address 00:00:24:c8:b2:75
ukphy1 at vr1 phy 1: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface, rev. 3: OUI
0x004063, model 0x0034
vr2 at pci0 dev 8 function 0 "VIA VT6105M RhineIII" rev 0x96: irq 9,
address 00:00:24:c8:b2:76
ukphy2 at vr2 phy 1: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface, rev. 3: OUI
0x004063, model 0x0034
vr3 at pci0 dev 9 function 0 "VIA VT6105M RhineIII" rev 0x96: irq 12,
address 00:00:24:c8:b2:77
ukphy3 at vr3 phy 1: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface, rev. 3: OUI
0x004063, model 0x0034
ral0 at pci0 dev 14 function 0 "Ralink RT2860" rev 0x00: irq 10, address
00:0e:8e:20:82:9f
ral0: MAC/BBP RT2860 (rev 0x0102), RF RT2850 (MIMO 2T3R)
glxpcib0 at pci0 dev 20 function 0 "AMD CS5536 ISA" rev 0x03: rev 3,
32-bit 3579545Hz timer, watchdog, gpio
gpio0 at glxpcib0: 32 pins
pciide0 at pci0 dev 20 function 2 "AMD CS5536 IDE" rev 0x01: DMA,
channel 0 wired to compatibility, channel 1 wired to compatibility
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0:
wd0: 4-sector PIO, LBA, 3919MB, 8027712 sectors
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2
pciide0: channel 1 ignored (disabled)
ohci0 at pci0 dev 21 function 0 "AMD CS5536 USB" rev 0x02: irq 15,
version 1.0, legacy support
ehci0 at pci0 dev 21 function 1 "AMD CS5536 USB" rev 0x02: irq 15
usb0 at ehci0: USB revision 2.0
uhub0 at usb
