Arch Linux

Bageer

Member

Registered: 2011-04-04

Posts: 1

Arch computer freeze (probably somthing with kernel and broadcom-wl)

Finally switch to arch on my main computer but I do have one annoying problem outside of just normal configuration of system.

When using wireless "heavily" (basically download something of a couple MB or surfing the web for a little while) my computer completely freezes and there is no keyboard or mouse contol. I end up haveing to shutdown by holding the powerbutton. This started when I upgraded to 2.6.37 soon after the install. This problem does not happen when on kernel 2.6.34 or whatever was on the live cd. I am using the broadcom-wl driver from tha AUR ([14e4:4329] BCM4321 is my hardware). The last time I had the the crash I checked the everything log and the stuff in the log at the time it happened said this:

localhost kernel: wl 0000:08:6.0: PCI-DMA: Out of IOMMU space for 1876 bytes

Also I have tried total reinstalls, kernel from testing repositories, networkmangager, manually connect network. Also the problem doesn't seem to have anything to do with X because it happened before I installed X and happens in my root which does not have X.

If I down grade to kernel 2.6.34 or use wired the computer does not freeze but I would like to be using wireless and be current. The only thing I can think of right now to try is kernel 2.6.39-rc1 (I downloaded to test if wired would make computer freeze). The problem is I have never copiled a kernel and I don't want to screw up my computer even more.

Help would be greatly appreciated.

Last edited by Bageer (2011-04-04 23:01:49)

admiralspark

Member

From: Alaska, USA

Registered: 2011-01-07

Posts: 87

Re: Arch computer freeze (probably somthing with kernel and broadcom-wl)

Hi! Two things:
First, if you plan on testing a newer kernel, try the kernel26-ck package from the AUR. It has the newest updates and is easily installed with whichever pacman wrapper you desire (I recommend Yaourt).
Second, I'd check everything in /var/log and dmesg to see if your system is producing any errors. I have a netbook using the wl driver and it work's fine, even when streaming and downloading vanila kernels/iso's. What's the chipset you have?

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