After some more unsuccessful digging with brcmsmac driver, I thought I'd give wl driver a try. Unfortunately it does not work with kernels > 3.8, so I tried with 3.2. There, wl.ko built successfully, created eth1 device on load, and wifi apparently works fine. I transferred a few gigs in both direction, and the signal is very stable at 65Mbps. It worked for several hours. Unfortunately, kernels before 3.9 has another problem on this laptop: it is the battery life. 3.8 and older kernels draws battery much faster (even without wifi enabled), this laptop lasts about 4 hours on battery with 3.2 kernel, compared to more than 7 with 3.10 kernel. I guess it is the new ivy bridge pstates support introduced in 3.9. I tried compiling wl.ko for 3.10 kernel, but unfortunately it doesn't work there (after some minor tweaking of the source - I just commented out procfs support) -- it does not find any devices. So it looks like brcmsmac driver has a prob/bug, while wl driver works, but wl doesn't work with more recent kernel. It is still better than to use a separate usb dongle. But it'd be really nie to see brcmsmac driver just working without the need to decide which don you want now: battery life or wifi (I'd vote for both :) Thanks, /mjt 14.01.2014 12:59, Michael Tokarev wrote: > So, I returned from my newyear trip. There, I tried to use this my laptop > with many various wifi networks, in hotels, cafes and other places. And > it never worked. > > So I bought an usb wifi adaptor, some cheap old orient model, which worked > MUCH better than the built-in broadcom wifi. Except of 2 issues. > > First, the antenna in this usb dongle is small, so signal quality isn't as > good as for the built-in adaptor with good antenna. > > And second, which is much more severe, it is an external adaptor plugged > into an usb slot, so it isn't that easy as internal one, but it is very > easy to BREAK the usb slot. Which is what I did while sitting in a cafe > and someone else walking by. So now I've one usb port on my laptop broken > now (with very unpleasant large crack on the laptop "body") and the usb > wifi adaptor I bought is broken too. > > I also tried to replace the internal wifi card with some non-broadcom > model, but the laptop refused to _boot_ while the card is inserted > (a so-called bios lock). > > So the question stands: what is the way to actually use the internal > bcm card, without all those hassles I already encountered? > > So far, the expirience was that anything with broadcom inside should > NOT be considered for a purchase, because the issues they gave you > costs much more than a price difference for a different model without > broadcom parts. > > Thanks, > > /mjt > > 28.12.2013 16:24, Michael Tokarev wrote: >> Thank you very much for the reply! >> >> 28.12.2013 13:42, Arend van Spriel wrote: >>> On 12/27/2013 09:58 PM, Michael Tokarev wrote: >>>> Hello. >>>> >>>> Got a Lenovo Thinkpad notebook with the following wifi card: >>>> >>>> 03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4727] (rev 01) >>>> Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation Device [14e4:0608] >>>> Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17 >>>> Memory at f1600000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] >>>> Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3 >>>> Capabilities: [58] Vendor Specific Information: Len=78 <?> >>>> Capabilities: [48] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+ >>>> Capabilities: [d0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00 >>>> Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting >>>> Capabilities: [13c] Virtual Channel >>>> Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 00-00-24-ff-ff-fe-48-d2 >>>> Capabilities: [16c] Power Budgeting <?> >>>> Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge >> >> [wifi tx stalls after short usage, 3.12 kernel] >> >>>> P.S. I tried to find archives of brcm80211 list, or a way to >>>> subscribe to it before posting, but found neither. Are there >>>> archives? >>> >>> Nope. The brcm80211-dev-list is just a (hopefully) convenient way to get >>> your message to the brcm80211 driver developer within Broadcom. So it is >>> always best to Cc: the linux-wireless list as well. >> >> Ah. So the real archives should be for linux-wireless@ not for brcm..@ :) >> Got it, thank you! >> >>> Now about your card. I am not sure where to start, but can you dump >>> contents for following debugfs file: >>> >>> /sys/kernel/debug/brcmsmac/bcma*/hardware >> >> # cat /sys/kernel/debug/brcmsmac/bcma0\:0/hardware >> board vendor: 14e4 >> board type: 608 >> board revision: 1109 >> board flags: 402201 >> board flags2: 884 >> firmware revision: 262032c >> >>> Also a capture file would be great so if you have wireshark or dumpcap you can add monitor interface and capture 802.11 packets from connect up until the stalls. Commands for adding/enabling monitor interface (ass root/sudo): >>> >>> # iw dev wlan0 interface add mon0 type monitor >>> # ifconfig mon0 up >> >> Capture file made with tcpdump is attached (gzipped). I started the >> capture with wlan0 disabled, next I used `nmcli con up id "wifi mjt"' >> to connect to the AP (named, obviously, "mjt"), and next I tried to >> d/load a file from my website (86.62.121.231). It d/loaded about 27Kb >> and stalled. Next I tried to ping the AP (192.168.88.65), which also >> didn't work. >> >> That's quite a typical behavour of this whole thing. Sometimes it >> lasts a bit longer, but that's rather unusual and it ends up stalling >> anyway. >> >> Is it worth the effort to try 3.13-tobe kernel here? I browsed changes >> in there made in drivers/net/wireless/brcm80211/ compared with 3.12, but >> there aren't many changes related to the softmac version, and most >> looks rather cosmetic. >> >> Thank you very much for the help! >> >> /mjt >> > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
