[SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

diesel1 · 2008-08-04 02:57:10

Hi all,

Having installed Arch i686 on my wife's new Acer TravelMate 5520 I followed the wireless setup in the wiki using b43 and drivers for Broadcom 4311. I get a connection on startup but after an irregular period of time the connection freezes and I have to netcfg2 -d {profile} then restart.

Is any one else seeing this behaviour?

I wil make a script for my wife to run in case of lockups but really I would like to find a permanent solution.

Diesel1.

Last edited by diesel1 (2008-09-20 22:27:03)

wonder · 2008-08-04 06:41:55

i use b43 with broadcom 4311 card. mine is stable like a rock. i'm using gnome-network-manager.

maybe the AP drops de connection. do you have other wireless in the house?

Last edited by wonder (2008-08-04 06:42:14)

diesel1 · 2008-08-04 09:08:14

wonder wrote:

i use b43 with broadcom 4311 card. mine is stable like a rock. i'm using gnome-network-manager.
maybe the AP drops de connection. do you have other wireless in the house?

I do have other wireless connecting, several pci DLink cards and two pcmcia cards, which are all stable.

After initially failling to get the BCM43xx and b43 drivers working with Arch I tried using Ubuntu 8.04.1 which worked, but only in roaming mode, but suffered the same problem of freezing, partly due to Ubuntu resetting the DNS server IP but also this same freezing.

I decided to put Arch back on this laptop since if Ubuntu could run the wireless so could Arch. I completed the installation and found the freezing problem occuring at least eight or nine times an hour for around eightth hours.

Fortunately after removing the firmware and b43 driver and utils and re-installing them, and leaving the laptop on all night, the connection seems to have been stable!

I will see how things go but it seems to be good now.

Thanks for your response.

Diesel1.

diesel1 · 2008-08-04 22:01:13

Well it seems I spoke too soon, this evening I am getting freezing again. I am wondering if it could be channel interference. I used channel 9 since 2000 after someone nearby went on channel 6. Recently I have noticed 3 or 4 new networks showing up on scans but I haven't noticed which channel they were using.

I just noticed that the link quality, signal level and noise level all drop to zero when there is a freeze. Usually it shows 104/100 link quality, signal -48 dBm and noise at -66 dBm.

I have connected to the AP successfully with other pc/pda's while the laptop connection is frozen so it might be a problem on the laptop.

Diesel1.

Last edited by diesel1 (2008-08-04 23:15:16)

iphitus · 2008-08-05 01:12:11

What do you mean by "freezing"?

Do applications all lock up at once?
Or does the network suddently "not work"?

diesel1 · 2008-08-05 01:45:43

iphitus wrote:

What do you mean by "freezing"?
Do applications all lock up at once?
Or does the network suddently "not work"?

I mean the network suddenly freezes, some apps lock while the network requests timeout but they are not crashed.
After struggling to get connections all night I am wondering if it is a faulty wireless module or overheating in the laptop, it seems to be worse when the power cord is in or it feels warm/hot. If I 'netcfg2 -d wap' then slide the wireless switch (lights up the orange led on the front of the laptop) and wait a minute or so, then switch it off again, then 'netcfg2 wap' it seems to work for a while, maybe 3 or 4 minutes.

I am really frustrated by this as it worked fine for 3 or 4 hours through the day yesterday. It is absolutely useless for my wife in this state, she will not tolerate messing about with switches etc. Not to mention the £360 she has spent.

Any help is very much appreciated.

Diesel1.

Last edited by diesel1 (2008-08-05 01:48:15)

diesel1 · 2008-08-05 09:15:37

Ok, so now when I flick the wireless switch no light comes on, does this mean the wireless is physically broken?

This morning I was getting 'Network Unavailable' from 'netcfg2 wap' commands sometimes but iwconfig always shows the device there, with the zero quality, strenght and noise. Could this be a wireless power on/off issue?

Sorry for all the questions and different theories but very soon I will have to try and recreate the odd partition structure (when I tried to cfdisk the drive with Vista on it said the partition finished on the last cylinder or something) and dd the MBR, sda1,2 and 3 back to the drive to return it to Acer.

Fscking computers, who needs 'em.

Diesel1.

UPDATE: Well it has run okay all day long today except for one freeze which was cured immediately with a 'netcfg2 -d wap/netcfg2 wap' command. I have downloaded a 700mb iso and my wife has been using it for at least 4 hours.

Last edited by diesel1 (2008-08-05 20:31:29)

diesel1 · 2008-08-07 23:10:52

Well I am now experiencing the same network issues, iwconfig shows the interface, the AP, AP mac address but the link quality, signal strength and noise level all show zero.

Could this be a (radio) power on/off problem?

Ah well back to the cable to send the wife's email.

Diesel1.

Sorry for the triple post by the way.

UPDATE: I am noticing authentification timeouts in dmesg, but I am not sure what I can change to improve things.

Any pointers?

Last edited by diesel1 (2008-08-08 02:18:02)

diesel1 · 2008-08-08 22:17:35

I know, I know......quad post...not good but I found this post on Arch forums...

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=42924

But it doesn't have an answer.

I have a new AP but get exact same results.

Also I notice when I scan I get several nearby networks constantly but my own network is only shown 50% of the time at the most.

Help!

Diesel1.

*UPDATE*
I have changed to wpa and changed the channel to 5 and I now have a rock steady connection.
The wep connection simply does not work.

Last edited by diesel1 (2008-08-09 02:18:24)

Odd-rationale · 2008-08-11 23:31:25

I'm having a very similar issue.

I am also experiencing some very high lag. One moment it would be fine, then all of a sudden my internet connection starts to be so slow. Then it gets back to normal... This is very annoying...

I have a BCM4306 card, using the b43 module, netcfg2, and WPA.

The thing is, I did not have this problem with the bcm43xx module. When b43-fwcutter came out, I began to use, but experienced the problem described above. So I switched back to the bcm43xx and had no problems.

I would still simply use the bcm43xx module, until a kernel update (2.6.26.2-1) dropped support for this module. I can no longer modprobe it. The b43legacy module simply doesn't work. My card is supposed to use the b43 anyways, according to the supported device list on the website.

Any help is appreciated!

diesel1 · 2008-08-11 23:47:37

I would suggest starting a new topic as this has been marked [SOLVED] and I am not sure you are experiencing the same kind of problem. My connection was not lagging but actually being dropped/not authenticated.

Diesel1.

Last edited by diesel1 (2008-08-11 23:48:09)

FUzzylogiCK · 2008-08-18 19:47:21

I'm having the exact same issue. I was using bcm43xx until the most recent kernel update. I've got b43-fwcutter installed and followed the wiki to install the firmware. The module gets loaded and the interface is there and when doing an iwconfig, it appears that I'm attached to my ap and a dmesg says that wlan0 is authenticated, but no packets are flowing through and I cannot obtain an IP address through dhcp.

I'm only using simple 128-bit wep on this ap.

I have a Broadcom BCM4306 rev 03 card that has been working in Arch with the old module for almost two years now, so this is incredibly frustrating. I tried the b43legacy module and firmware but I have even less results there (cannot even scan for networks).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

**Update** WPA works, but not WEP. I haven't had it running long enough to see if the connection starts dropping like Diesel1 is experiencing. What's frustrating is that I often need to connect to networks using WEP...

Last edited by FUzzylogiCK (2008-08-18 19:57:29)

diesel1 · 2008-08-18 21:00:55

FUzzylogiCK wrote:

I'm having the exact same issue......
**Update** WPA works, but not WEP. I haven't had it running long enough to see if the connection starts dropping like Diesel1 is experiencing. What's frustrating is that I often need to connect to networks using WEP...

Have you checked the logs for info, dmesg etc?

There might be a bug in the module somewhere.

Diesel1.

Last edited by diesel1 (2008-08-18 21:40:36)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-04 02:57:10

[SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#2 2008-08-04 06:41:55

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#3 2008-08-04 09:08:14

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#4 2008-08-04 22:01:13

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#5 2008-08-05 01:12:11

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#6 2008-08-05 01:45:43

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#7 2008-08-05 09:15:37

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#8 2008-08-07 23:10:52

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#9 2008-08-08 22:17:35

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#10 2008-08-11 23:31:25

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#11 2008-08-11 23:47:37

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#12 2008-08-18 19:47:21

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

#13 2008-08-18 21:00:55

Re: [SOLVED]connection freezing with b43, netcfg2 and Broadcom 4311 (rev1)

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