Lifebook S2110: broadcom 4401 is slowly
 

Hi,

my Hardware: Siemens Lifebook 2110, Turion 64, 512MB, Broadcom BCM4401-BO 100-Base-TX. ACPI on.

my System: Suse 10.1 Remastered, 32-bit, Linux version 2.6.16.13-4-default, using 32-bit, because running specialized scientific software.

Problem: I installed Suse 10.1 on the machine with FTP-sources. Everything works fine during the installation. After installtion the network is very slowly, it works with a few kB. I try get some files with rsync from another machine. The KnetworkManager, switch permanent between connected and disconneced. Also seen in /var/log/messages:

Oct 23 01:00:59 notebook-magerkurth kernel: b44: eth0: Link is down.
Oct 23 01:01:01 notebook-magerkurth kernel: b44: eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex.
Oct 23 01:01:01 notebook-magerkurth kernel: b44: eth0: Flow control is on for TX and on for RX.
Oct 23 01:01:01 notebook-magerkurth kernel: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready
Oct 23 01:01:01 notebook-magerkurth su: (to root) magerkurth on /dev/pts/1
Oct 23 01:01:02 notebook-magerkurth kernel: b44: eth0: Link is down.
Oct 23 01:01:04 notebook-magerkurth kernel: b44: eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex.
Oct 23 01:01:04 notebook-magerkurth kernel: b44: eth0: Flow control is on for TX and on for RX.
Oct 23 01:01:04 notebook-magerkurth kernel: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready
Oct 23 01:01:09 notebook-magerkurth kernel: b44: eth0: Link is down.
Oct 23 01:01:12 notebook-magerkurth kernel: b44: eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex.
Oct 23 01:01:12 notebook-magerkurth kernel: b44: eth0: Flow control is on for TX and on for RX.
Oct 23 01:01:12 notebook-magerkurth kernel: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready

Any Ideas?

Best regards

jm78

I don't have any specific experience with your laptop, but I have never been able to get satisfactory results with the native broadcom driver with in my older Compaq Presario 2145. The one time I was able to get a network connection the throughput was terrible (like you describe).

The solution for me was to download, compile, and install the current version of ndiswrapper. I have used this with great results on my laptop under CentOS and currently Slackware 11 and Dropline Gnome. The native broadcom driver is just not worth fooling with imo.

Bob

i thought ndiswrapper is only for wlan. Why did the drivers work at the installing?

Is it possible to use driver wich the installion routine uses? How?