tricky prism54 pcmcia wlan problem

stabu · 10-01-2005, 11:41 AM

ok, I have a prism54 chip wlan card. My Slack 10.1 seems to have it installed. But there also seems to be some cyclical argy bargy occurring in dmesg:

Code:

iit : shpc_cap_offset == 0
shpchp: shpc_init : shpc_cap_offset == 0
shpchp: Standard Hot Plug PCI Controller Driver version: 0.4
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
pciehp: PCI Express Hot Plug Controller Driver version: 0.5
Loaded prism54 driver, version 1.2
PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 07:00.0. Please try using pci=biosirq.
eth1: could not install IRQ handler
ohci1394: $Rev: 1045 $ Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>
PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 02:00.0. Please try using pci=biosirq.
ohci1394: Failed to allocate shared interrupt 0
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
shpchp: shpc_init : shpc_cap_offset == 0
shpchp: shpc_init : shpc_cap_offset == 0
shpchp: Standard Hot Plug PCI Controller Driver version: 0.4
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
pciehp: PCI Express Hot Plug Controller Driver version: 0.5
i810_rng: RNG not detected
hw_random: RNG not detected
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5

This sequence is repeated 15 times!

Any how a line 5 in this output says, prism54 is there, so why worry?

Well, "iwconfig" gives me no wireless extensions, so there is something wrong.

In my desperation, I decided to try modprobing prism54, as it didn't appear in lsmod, and here I got more errors.

I can post some more stuff, but I'll just see if anybody has any advice on the above.

shepper · 10-02-2005, 12:15 PM

1) Some newer prism54 cards are softmac which are not presently supported. What card and version are you using?

2) Did you install the firmware in /lib/firmware?

3) Prism54 Website w/ links to Firmware, Slackware install forum etc

stabu · 10-02-2005, 03:16 PM

thanks for reply.

it´s a netgear WG511, 32 bit CardBus it says. That's all it says.

Firmware? are those the .arm files? I create a directory for it in lib, you mean? i.e. stick the arm file in there?

What happens if I have a second wlan card I want to use. How does Slack know which firmware to use?

shepper · 10-02-2005, 11:20 PM

The .arm files need to be copied and renamed.

For Slackware 10.1 and 10.2 they go in /lib/firmware and are renamed isl3890. The site I linked for you in the previous post also has the firmware files and directions. Did you check it out?

The wireless network scripts (in /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless) will probe for network connections. First for NIC cards and if none are found then on to wireless devices. These scripts assign eth0 to the first network connection made wired or wireless.

You may need to edit the rc.wireless script to get it to recognize your specific wireless device. The script is well commented and self explanatory.

Slackware prism54 forums

Also note this previous post. The chipsets changed with a slight change in the model number.
Previous post if found by Google search terms "Netgear WG511 linux"

If it is an atheros chipset you would be using the wrong driver. You would need the madwifi drivers.

shepper · 10-02-2005, 11:28 PM

More info here
Atheros vs Prism54

stabu · 10-03-2005, 04:10 PM

thanks shepper for the follow-up.

It mightn´t appear like it, but yes I am visiting all those sites, and the sites they link to, and I don´t like what I read.

What seems to be clear is that the normal Netgear WG511 was a PrismGT/Duette card. The extra "T" or "A" would mean that its Atheros, but that's not the case here. WG511 only.

Using a Knoppix 3.9 live CD, lspci shows this card up as Intersil alright. The amazing thing is that Slack (and Slax) think its a Harris DLink (Atheros).

But, hang on! I''ll try and RT2500 wlan card on it. Oh, oh! I have deep problem, after compling the driver, Ralink is recognised in lspci, but the same cyclical repetition in dmesg continues.

I'm startig tio get disappoitned in Slack. Maybe it's a desktop distro only. I am using a laptop.

shepper · 10-03-2005, 09:25 PM

I run as SMC 2802w version 1 pci card in Slack 10.1 with 128 WEP and it has been very reliable. It is one of the older ones (not a softmac) lspci on my machine shows:

00:08.0 Network controller: Harris Semiconductor D-Links DWL-g650 A1 (rev 01)
Subsystem: Standard Microsystems Corp [SMC]: Unknown device 2802

The output from your first post shows the module is enabled but I do not see anything about pcmcia services. When you installed were these services enabled? I do not own anything with a pcmcia slot but if I remember right you have to have the rc.pcmcia script executable to load pcmcia at boot.

The other thing I can think of to check is that the MAC address of the card is recognized by the rc.wireless script.

Quote:

5 How to identify a card
Let assume you already have a wireless card plugged in your PC, and want to know which one it is and which driver you need. Linux has usually a way to display a card identification, but this depend on the type of card.

If the card is an ISA card, you are usually out of luck.

If the card is a true Pcmcia or Cardbus card, you need to use the command "cardctl ident" display the card identification strings. Note that cardmgr will also write some identification strings in the message logs (/var/log/daemon.log) that may be different from the real card identification strings.

If the card is a PCI card, you need to use the command "lspci -v" to display the card identification strings.

If the hardware is a USB dongle, you usually get the identification strings from the kernel log using "dmesg" (or in /var/log/messages).

The card identification usually helps to identify the chipset inside the hardware, and in some other cases it does not, because the vendor has changed the identity. Once you have identified the chipset, it is usually straightforward to check if the hardware is supported and which driver to use.

Most Linux drivers knows about some of those card identifications, and will automatically bind to the hardware. It is usually simple to add new identification to a driver.

Jacek Pliszka recommend to get the FCC-ID written at the back of the hardware and to run it through the FCC database. He also recommend to check the Windows driver (both identification and file name) for some clues.

Jean Tourrilhes HP wireless web site (excellent reference)

I do not know if you can track him down but the author of the rc.wireless scripts that are used in Slackware 10.1 and 10.2 initally posted his scripts in the prism54 slackware forums at the prism54.org site. He was running an SMC based prism54 pcmcia card and could probably get you up and running in a few short emails I think Pat V gave his name in the 10.0 -> 10.1 changelog

stabu · 10-04-2005, 05:19 PM

hi again shepper, I appreciate your sticking with this.

I looked up your SMC card on HCL, isn´t it meant to be prism54?

Of coure it's normal PCI, not pcmcia ... I think my particular problem has to be pcmcia, or yenta_socket, or both, or nether because it's hotplug ... you knwo the sort of thing, and endless number of potential culprits that I'll have to go through one by one.

My third machine has a dlink atheros PCI card. I ha zero problems with that one. Zero problem with the wlan that is, X is giving me a headache though .. that'll be going into a separate post.

So if your SMC is prism54 why is it coming up as dlink on your lspci? Are you getting an ath0 device symbol? OK, you say it's an early version "softmac" (soft mac address?, interesting).

Yes. I know of the Tourrilhes pages, they are very known. How wellread is another matter. I haven't really been through them all that well ... better go off and do it then.

shepper · 10-04-2005, 10:28 PM

My SMC 2802w is prism54 based. The hardware data base that is encoded into the the kernel is not complete. I posted it to see if it matched your output.

stabu · 10-05-2005, 03:54 PM

thanks shepper. that's saying something.

my problem is pcmcia .. I'll go to linuxonlaptops.com or whatever its called. Bound to find some "fratres" *there*.

I'm not going to post my X problem until I get my new graphics card. *This* time, it's an ATI.

cheers

stabu · 10-07-2005, 04:30 PM

The moral of this story is "stay lazy, stay sloppy"

I followed two troubleshooting tracks simultanaeously. One go through all the rc files in my slack and see what's causing al this naff cyclical crap which you see in my my first thread, or google-till-I-drop.

In the end google-till-I-drop won. Not that it was elegant. In fact it was very messy. I read all sorts of stuff that sounded too complicated for me. Finally I hit upon ACPI.

ACPI is infamous in linux laptops. It's like jelly. It's a moving target. Search me, I don't know why. But I had chosen to use bare.i in my slack install.

I tried recompling 2.4.29 enabling ACPI. But that definitely did not work, because I've only compiled 2.6 kernels and here's a huge difference so I got it wrong.

In the end, I re-installed and chose bareacpi.i, and then made sure kernel option acpi=on was included in my GRUB bootloader.

And guess what. My wireless networking is detected! It ws always prism54. The problem wasn't even PCMCIA, HOTPLUG or YENTA SOCKET.

Laptops need ACPI .. enable it as much as you can!