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Old 12-28-2004, 08:31 AM   #1
GrayGh0st
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usb wireless networking issues possibly related to ehci_hcd module!


I just wanted to pass along some information regarding problems people are having, myself included, regarding wireless networking with the linux-wlan drivers and usb wireless adapters. What follows is a description of the problems I encountered and the hardware I am using so you can see if all or any part of this applies to your situation. This is what is working for me...

Sorry for the long-windedness!

I recently installed Fedora Core 3 with the 2.6.9 kernel and was having tons of trouble getting my wireless usb adapter to work under Fedora. I followed all the instructions in the readme, and also in the howto posted here, specifically the one for my usb device the Netgear MA111, and it wasn't working.

When trying to run commands such as 'wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable', I would get an error message from wlanctl-ng saying 'no such device' or something of that sort.

I noticed that upon booting up linux, the green power light on my usb adapter would come on for a few seconds, and then turn off, but I didn't think much of it. I kept thinking that it was the linux-wlan drivers that were at fault.

So upon further reading of the forums here, I saw that some people recommended leaving the netgear device unplugged during bootup, and then after booting finished, THEN plug it in. This also did me no good, HOWEVER, when I checked dmesg after plugging in the usb device, I got this error message:

usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using address 2
usb 4-2: control timeout on ep0out
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: Unlink after no-IRQ? Different ACPI or APIC settings may help.
usb 4-2: control timeout on ep0out
usb 4-2: device not accepting address 2, error -110
usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using address 3
usb 4-2: control timeout on ep0out
usb 4-2: control timeout on ep0out
usb 4-2: device not accepting address 3, error -110

Well that would certainly explain why my system couldn't even see the freakin adapter!

So, upon searching this forum now for this error, some people pointed to the acpi/apic module - which would make sense as that's indicated in the kernel error message. Some recommended sending the command 'pci=noacpi' to the kernel. I will say that I haven't tried this yet, but it seemed to work for some.

Others mentioned to try unloading both modules - uhci_usb and ehci_usb, and try loading different combinations of the two. So I unloaded both, reloaded uhci_usb and viola! The power light on the netgear adapter came on, I checked dmesg, and sure enough, the adapter was recognized by the prism2_usb module, and everything worked great.

Since it doesn't seem possible to just stop the ehci_hcd module from loading, what I want to try as a more permanent/automatic fix is to add to my rc.local script something like

rmmod ehci_hcd
rmmod uhci_hcd
modprobe uhci_hcd

/etc/init.d/wlan start

So, with all this info., I do have a question. Does the problem lie in the ehci_hcd module, or the acpi/apic settings, or something totally differenet? Does anyone know if this has been fixed in the 2.6.10 kernel? I checked the changelog and saw some ehci related fixes, but nothing, to me, seemed relevant to this problem. Is there a better solution/temporary fix than modifying rc.local as I described?

Hope this helps

Justin
 
Old 12-28-2004, 06:58 PM   #2
loonyxp
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Re: usb wireless networking issues possibly related to ehci_hcd module!

Quote:
Originally posted by GrayGh0st
specifically the one for my usb device the Netgear MA111, and it wasn't working.

Justin
Which one is it? Version 1 or version 2 of the MA111?
It's a different chipset!

loony
 
Old 12-28-2004, 10:03 PM   #3
GrayGh0st
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I checked both the box and the device, neither of which give a version number.

Is one chipset known to not work at all? i.e. non-prism chipset? If so, then as I mentioned, I have gotten the device to work with some tinkering.

Justin
 
Old 12-29-2004, 04:45 AM   #4
loonyxp
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Quote:
Originally posted by GrayGh0st
I checked both the box and the device, neither of which give a version number.

Is one chipset known to not work at all? i.e. non-prism chipset? If so, then as I mentioned, I have gotten the device to work with some tinkering.

Justin
With the version 2 of the MA111 adapter chipset has changed from prism to SIS162. It cannot be used with the linux-wlan-ng driver. There are some drivers for SIS162 for Linux, but support is limited and there are reports that the drivers won't compile on all systems.
Gericom and Acer are producing devices that are using the SIS chipset, here is a link, give it a try:
ftp://ftp.gericom.com/NOTEBOOK/Acess...WLAN-Linux.tgz

Netgear says, if you order their product you cannot choose between the versions, perhaps even they don't know which version they are currently shipping
If you don't fear warranty void, you could open it and see yourself which chipset it is.

You could also bring it back to store and get something with an atmel chipset (e.g. belkin fd), it's very well supported.

loony
 
Old 12-29-2004, 11:07 AM   #5
GrayGh0st
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I must be using version 1 because it works with prism based linux-wlan drivers

Also, sending the kernel the boot parameter 'pci=noacpi' worked like a charm. Now, I don't need to unload the ehci module to get the adapter to work. Yippee

I hope this information helped those of you experiencing similar problems.

Justin
 
  


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