Slow wireless should I use ndiswrapper? acer5570z
 

I'll make it short and sweet... With this laptop (acer 5570z, / acer aspire 5570-2052) with Vista I got the full 54mbs wireless connection to my home network. With Fedora Core 8 (no special install) I am connecting with wifi at 1mbs.

Due to most messages I have seen, I am lucky to have wireless at all (and, the light does come on!)

I am debating if I should leave well enough alone, or try the ndiswrapper with the windows drivers. Only thing I fear is uninstalling ndiswrapper if it fails. But, 1mbs is pathetic.

If you want any further info, please ask, and tell me how to give it. Don't want to waste space here if there is no point.

Which of the three possible wireless devices is installed on the laptop??? /sbin/lspci -v

The broadcom wireless device (4818) is known to have an issue with the built-in bcm43xx kernel module, radio transmission issues.

One has to blacklist this in the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file, example; blacklist bcm43xx
And makes an edit to the /etc/modprobe.conf file, example:
#alias eth1 bcm43xx
alias wlan0 ndiswrapper

One has to create a /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 file which is just an edited renamed copy of the ifcfg-eth1 file(eth1 becomes wlan0 as both the file name and the DEVICE name inside the file).

Then one can install the dkms-ndiswrapper rpm package from freshrpms; http://werewolf.freshrpms.net/rpm.html?id=86

rpm -Uvh http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrp....fc.noarch.rpm

yum install dkms-ndiswrapper

Un-installing is just as simple: yum remove dkms-ndiswrapper
One then comments out or removes the blacklisting and edits the /etc/modprobe.conf file back.

Do use the WindowsXP driver with ndiswarpper, here is a link for the windows XP drivers;
ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/note...re_5570/driver

.

lspci -v reports:

03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01)
Subsystem: AMBIT Microsystem Corp. Unknown device 0422
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
Memory at 50100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [58] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [d0] Express Legacy Endpoint IRQ 0

I'll give your directions I try. I just remember trying once before, and I had to use rmmod -r b43, but before that rmmod -r ss (I think that was it, going from memory) and it still did not work, but made a mess. I think I also used the Vista drivers, which was before I read that they were not yet compatible with ndiswrapper.

I'll follow your directions, and post what happens. Thanks.

Works, thanks!
 

Followed your directions, and it now works like a charm!
Only thing, after using ndiswrapper with the .inf file, I got an error message similar to device being used (ssb) (don't remember it exactly) adding blacklist ssb to the /etc/modprobe blacklist file, rebooting...

And, I now have the full 54mbs speed, along with flashing wifi light (stayed solid before)

Thanks again for your help!

You are welcome, glad to help........

Yes 54Mb/s speed is really nice to have!!!

Just to clarify(for others), one needs to blacklist both b43 and ssb kernel modules.

It works, but... (wifi acer 5570z)
 

I can still connect wireless, but I have a few questions.

dmesg reports:
wlan0: ethernet device 00:19:7e:6c:4f:df using NDIS driver: bcmwl5, version: 0x4640f05, NDIS version: 0x501, vendor: 'NDIS Network Adapter', 14E4:4311.5.conf
wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP; TKIP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK; AES/CCMP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK
usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper
net dev25344: device_rename: sysfs_create_symlink failed (-17)
ndiswrapper: changing interface name from 'wlan0' to 'dev25344'
net wlan0: device_rename: sysfs_create_symlink failed (-17)
sky2 wlan0: enabling interface
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
sky2 wlan0: disabling interface

I have no idea why it is using dev25344 instead of wlan0...

and ifconfig reports:

dev25344 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:19:7E:6C:4F:DF
inet addr:192.168.1.72 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::219:7eff:fe6c:4fdf/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2494174 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1904057 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2278887861 (2.1 GiB) TX bytes:156914411 (149.6 MiB)
Interrupt:17 Memory:50100000-50104000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:7256 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:7256 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:3988402 (3.8 MiB) TX bytes:3988402 (3.8 MiB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1B:24:45:8F:FF
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:16

(note: usually wlan 0 says no connection present.)

But, it works... Does not connect at startup though.
Ideas?

Is the alias setup in /etc/modprobe.conf? Run 'ndiswrapper -m' if it isn't.

It should say something like:

The kudzu service is as much of a issue as it is a help, this is what is changing the wireless device(wlan0) to dev25344. Turn the service off, as root;

chkconfig --levels 2345 kudzu off

Also check the /etc/sysconfig/ sub-directories; /networking/devices, networking/profiles/default and network-scripts for unwanted extra strange ifcfg-devXXXXXX files and remove them.

Kernel update
 

I am about 5 kernel updates behind now. Got wireless working, and if it ain't broke don't fix it, but...

If I update the kernel, I assume I need to start from scratch?
Currently using Fedora 2.6.23.14-107.fc8

Depends if you have the dkms-diswrapper rpm package installed, if yes then it will rebuild itself for the new kernel. You might have to boot the system twice or manually insert the driver and restart networking by hand;

modprobe -r ndiswrapper
modprobe -v ndiswrapper
service network restart