MadWIFI ng-Trunk: Atheros 5212 Not running at 108mbps

How do you determine what rate the card is working at? What version of the driver are you using, madwifi-old or madwifi-ng? And what revision?

I am using MadWifi-NG, here, let me put out some information from my /var/log/messages for you lot:

Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna ath_hal: 0.9.16.3 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413, DFS) Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wlan: 0.8.4.2 (Atheros/multi-bss) Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna ath_rate_sample: 1.2 Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna ath_pci: 0.9.4.5 (Atheros/multi-bss) Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna PCI: Enabling device 0000:03:00.0 (0000 -> 0002) Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:03:00.0[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 177 Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: turboG rates: 6Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: H/W encryption support: WEP AES AES_CCM TKIP Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: mac 7.9 phy 4.5 radio 5.6 Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: Use hw queue 1 for WME_AC_BE traffic Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: Use hw queue 0 for WME_AC_BK traffic Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: Use hw queue 2 for WME_AC_VI traffic Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: Use hw queue 3 for WME_AC_VO traffic Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: Use hw queue 8 for CAB traffic Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: Use hw queue 9 for beacons Jan 11 00:04:50 Luna wifi0: Atheros 5212: mem=0x8c000000, irq=177 Revision: Madwifi-ng R1346-20051130.

Please try a more current version of madwifi-ng and let us know if the problem still exists.

Am I right that you determine which rate is available in tubro-g solely by the output of the available rates in the system log?

Actually, I determine the speed through the driver's dmesg ourput, and kwifimanager's speedometer.

IT will still not pass from 54Mbit with today's revision... madwifi-ng-1406 And the logs are exactly the same as the ones i previously sent.

For your information: I find this card only connects at a max of 54mbps also.

It often connects much slower than this - 48-36-24-18-or even 6 mbps.

In Windows it connects at a speed of 54 or 108mbps(reported by the netgear driver)

KWiFi also gives a signal strength of 37ish % which it considers 'excellent or top' ?

Could the reported speed / strength actually be half the actual speed / strength? - just a thought - looking forward to an updated driver to solve this (minor) problem.

Wild guess (needs to be confirmed): turbo mode works by combining two channels and using both for transmission. The actual speed on each channel is a max of 54 MBit, so you end up with 2 * 54 MBit/s = 108 MBit/s. I guess this could be the reason why you only see 54 MBit/s in the rate statistics as well as the kernel log message.

Can a speed test be done to actually check the turbo G vs. the regular G of speed differences ? I'm wondering if the driver is broken in this issue or just its displaying the stuff wrong.

thanks.

Agreed! No 108Mbps here either! Major bummer. I'm using WPN511 with WPN824 router. Router is configured to use 108Mbps with the Extended Range checkbox checked. I get superior rates and distance. I can walk off my house property and still have a good connection (approx. 24-48Mbps). Near the house and inside is 108Mbps everywhere...in Win'XP that is.

I dual boot with XP and Suse 10.1. If I boot into XP, I can see I'm connected at 108Mbps and I transfer at nearly those speeds. I get the same results as those above using dmesg. 54Mbps is max, no question!

I understand mr. developer is busy but I'm hoping it's WPN511's turn very soon.

PCI: Enabling device 0000:07:00.0 (0000 -> 0002) ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:07:00.0[A] -> Link [LNKB] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11 wifi0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps wifi0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps wifi0: turboG rates: 6Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps wifi0: H/W encryption support: WEP AES AES_CCM TKIP wifi0: mac 7.9 phy 4.5 radio 5.6 wifi0: Use hw queue 1 for WME_AC_BE traffic wifi0: Use hw queue 0 for WME_AC_BK traffic wifi0: Use hw queue 2 for WME_AC_VI traffic wifi0: Use hw queue 3 for WME_AC_VO traffic wifi0: Use hw queue 8 for CAB traffic wifi0: Use hw queue 9 for beacons

I just got a WNA-2330 and a WBR-2310. I've enabled super G on the router, and ticked off the extended range.

Whenever the card is inserted in the laptop, iwlist ath0 rate always reports a speed of 18Mb/s. I've confirmed this by transferring a 300 MB file back and forth over this link. The fastest speed I've achieved on a download (via scp) was 2.0 MB/s. So, I'm getting very close to the maximum, but it's no where near the speeds I expected (somewhere in the range of 30 Mb/s to 45 Mb/s). I've attempted numerous things, such as changing the cards rate to 54M, but it doesn't help: I can't transfer anything faster than between 1.7 MB/s - 2.0 MB/s.

One more thing I wanted to add to my comment above:

madwifi-0.9.2.1-1.lvn6 on Fedora Core 6

I also never get more than 50% strength for my wireless connection; be it 30 feet away or 10 feet away.

I also never get more than 50% strength for my wireless connection

If you judge that by looking at the signal strength information from iwconfig which probably says something like "50/95": that's no fraction. "50" in this case means an RSSI of 50 (which is excellent), "95" is the noise floor (or, in trunk, the actual noise seen on the channel).

If you judge that by looking at the signal strength information from iwconfig which probably says something like "50/95": that's no fraction. "50" in this case means an RSSI of 50 (which is excellent), "95" is the noise floor (or, in trunk, the actual noise seen on the channel).

Okay, thanks for the explanation. I guess then I don't have to worry about the quality/strength of the connection.

I use NetworkManager to manage my wired and wireless connections. It's NetworkManager that always reports a signal strength of between 45% and 52% (usually 50%). I suppose it's just reporting the figures from iwconfig.

So, it would seem I have sufficient signal quality to use the 108 Mbps my router and card feature. But, I can't attain. When I plug the pcmcia card in and check the speed it's running in, it's usually 36 Mbps or sometimes 48 Mbps - never 54 Mbps. The 1.7 MBps I'm usually getting make sense in this case.

Is there anything else I can provide to help trouble shoot this?

I too have a card with the AR5212 chip (SMC EZ connect - SMCWPCIT-G). This card should be able to run in turbo mode - but if I force my router into 802.11g only mode - and with static turbo I cannot get this card to detect the router. I've tried to follow the official guide for turbomode located here on madwifi.org

wlanconfig ath0 list chan reports:

Channel   1 : 2412  Mhz 11g          Channel   8 : 2447  Mhz 11g          
Channel   2 : 2417  Mhz 11g          Channel   9 : 2452  Mhz 11g          
Channel   3 : 2422  Mhz 11g          Channel  10 : 2457  Mhz 11g          
Channel   4 : 2427  Mhz 11g          Channel  11 : 2462  Mhz 11g          
Channel   5 : 2432  Mhz 11g          Channel  12 : 2467  Mhz 11g          
Channel   6 : 2437  Mhz 11g Dynamic  Channel  13 : 2472  Mhz 11g          
Channel   7 : 2442  Mhz 11g

This is AFTER modprobing the module with

 countrycode=0

and setting

iwpriv ath0 mode 3;iwpriv ath0 turbo 1.