hi all,

i have used ndiswrapper with fc5 to install a wireless pci card. the problem is that every so often, the machine either locks up or starts and stops at 2 second intervals. incidentally, i was never aware of this in fc4.

lspci gives:
01:06.0 Network controller: Texas Instruments ACX 111 54Mbps Wireless Interface

ls /etc/ndiswrapper/tnet1130/ gives:
104C:9066:104C:9067.5.conf 104C:9066:14EA:AB07.5.conf tnet1130.inf
104C:9066:13D1:AB80.5.conf 104C:9066.5.conf tnet1130.sys
104C:9066:13D1:AB90.5.conf fwrad16.bin
104C:9066:13D1:ABA0.5.conf fwrad17.bin

i'm assuming i'm using the correct driver but wouldn't know how to verify this.

can anyone help me to find out how i might go about (a) looking in various log files to identify the problem, and (b) suggest how this may be rectified. if this problem is not solvable, are their any resources to find out supported wireless cards in fc5?

my wireless worked fine on my windoze partition, and i am determined not to re-install it! a wired connection is not really an option for me.

thanks for any help in advance,
rik.

Visit: http://acx100.sourceforge.net/download.html

do i need to completely give up on ndiswrapper? is it a problem that when i make ndiswrapper i get a warning about 4k stack size?

i tried the link above but i couldn't get it to work. make did not produce the .ko file, and i dont have the expertise to find out why.

thanks
rik.

i am giving up on the acx111 module, as i have no idea how it should be set up. i will stay with ndiswrapper until i know how to use acx.

rik.

You do know that FC5 has somethings that may make life easier using ndiswrapper;

http://zod.freshrpms.net/rpm.html?id=1197

Yes, I know this says it is for FC6, but this should work as long as you have the FC5 dkms rpm package installed;

yum install dkms

Or download/install: http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pu...fc5.noarch.rpm

thanks,

i've followed the link and wireless hasn;t caused crash in 4 hours and counting.

rik

nope, back to square 1 - still freezes every so often.

will the acx module interfere with ndiswrsapper? can i just install dkms then dkms-ndiswrapper> is any other setup required, such as adding lines in modprobe.conf, etc?

as far as i'm aware, ndiswrapper is correctly installed. however, resetting the wireless router causes fedora 5 to crash (i can cope with that), but loss of signal seems to cause this 'pausing' every 2 seconds, which sometimes results in a crash.

thanks
rik.

If your having connectivity problems then it may be the wireless router and not the driver. I have a customer that recently experienced this same type of connectivity issue, the wireless networking was flakly at best, everything looked good from the systems and on the wireless router. But the systems lost connections randomly, sometimes all wireless systems (4), sometimes one or two. By replacing the wireless router with a different one the problem disappeared.

Things look for on the FC system side;

Make sure that the acx driver is not loaded: cat /proc/modules/ | grep acx
If it is then remove it: modprobe -r <the driver>

Check the output from: /sbin/iwlist wlan0 scan

This should show you if your system is configured to match your wireless access point and if any other wireless access points may be in range. It is a good idea to use a different channel number on the wireless router then the other wireless access points close to you.

If you lose the connection then instead of resetting the wireless router reset the wireless networking on the FC system, as root type; service network restart

thanks,

i tried everything you said, and there's no acx module loaded, and the scan shows all the correct settings. i moved the pc downstairs, so it's a few feet away from the wireless router, and it works perfectly.

i guess the only place the connection is reliable enough not to crash fedora is when a cable can reach to it, providing faster speeds!!

rik

Hmmm....... maybe it is interference or alignment or transmission power related then???? Hard to tell from here

Some cell phones, cordless phones, microwave ranges, bulethooth devices, brick or metal walls all can have negative affects on wireless connectivity. Antenna alignment (both at the router and wireless device) can also play a role.

I have gotten good signals and speed as far away as 80-100 meters, it depends on the router and wireless devices signal strength and other factors. Some Linksys wireless router's are known to have a very low signal strength for example. I'm just using Linksys as one example and I'm not singling out Linksys, all manufactures claim ranges which in the real world are not realistically possible. Some are better then others but none that I have seen can reach the ranges claimed.