I am having a really strange problem with the 1.0.3.0-drivers of Ralink for the RT2600-chipset.

Using cards D-Link G510 rev. C1 and A-Link-card with the same chipset (have hard time remembering or finding the model number now). Both cards are PCI and I have about 8 cards total with this chipset.

The drivers compiled well and also often work perfectly. The problem is that sometimes when the module rt61 is loaded, the computer instantly crashes. This happens on all of the computers sometimes, so it is definitely related to the RT61-module and possibly Mandriva (as all the computers run Mandriva 2006). The kernels I use are the default ones with and without SMP-support (2.6.12-12mdk and 2.6.12-12mdksmp).

dmesg says absolutely nothing, when loading the module. And within 2 - 3 seconds the computer crashes. This always happens in the boot - if it happens. When it doesn't crash loading the driver, it works perfectly. The crashes seem to be completely random and so bad that a hard reset is required (total lock-up, no kernel panic, etc.).

Anyone having the same problem? These WLAN-cards are pretty common and have a open source-driver. Too bad it doesn't always work...

Drivers downloaded from here: http://www.ralinktech.com/supp-1.htm

More info on the issue:

It seems these crashes only occur, when the wireless card cannot join the network (out of range, or access point turned off). It also seems that if the strength of the signal is not very close to maximum, it can't join the network, thus crashing the computer. That means that the access point must be very close to the computer, as even with a 75 % signal strength the card is still not able to always join the network, while the Mac Mini (Airport Express) next to the PC has no problems at all.

This explains why the crashes occur so randomly.