Wireless Power Adjustments

SoutheastSam · 12-04-2008, 11:36 PM

Under Fedora 10 I seem to have less connection quality on the same wireless network and same places. I think it might have to do with the power going to my wireless card. Would it help if I boosted its power via

Code:

iwconfig eth0 txpower

?

-Sam

SoutheastSam · 12-04-2008, 11:42 PM

Results of iwconfig are as follows:

Code:

lo        no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"msu1x"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:17:59:1B:6C:92   
          Bit Rate=1 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B   
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=23/100  Signal level:-84 dBm  Noise level=-99 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

eth0      no wireless extensions.

Hangdog42 · 12-05-2008, 12:01 AM

I don't think that you can adjust power settings on wireless cards. In fact this is the exact reason many companies give for not having open source drivers. Perhaps if you fill us in on some of the details about your wireless card we could point you in a useful direction.

SoutheastSam · 12-05-2008, 12:04 AM

Code:

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

This is the result of lspci | grep net.

Hangdog42 · 12-05-2008, 12:32 AM

I don't think you can adjust power on that chipset. If I remember correctly, that chipset uses the madwifi drivers, which in turn rely on a proprietary (and closed) binary blob to function. Most vendors who take this kind of approach don't allow the power settings on the chipset to be changed.

SoutheastSam · 12-05-2008, 09:15 AM

Ok thanks for the info.