Hello linux-wireless! Hello hostapd-users! I observe some remarkable behavior of the ath5k-driver/nl80211/hostapd - I don't know, which one makes me sad. Maybe, it's even me being the problem, so I would have a problem configuring or a problem with cfg80211. All the following bases on antennas used with 5dBi gain. I have an AP using ath5k in version 0.6.0 running on kernel 2.6.33.7, iw in version 0.9.21 and using hostapd 0.7.3. The wireless card is a AWPC085 from AlfaNetwork with an AR5414 chip. There are two things, I observe: 1. Thoughput measurements: I have tried several setups with wireless interfaces. My reference was a LinksysWRT54GL(http://www.linksysbycisco.com/DE/de/products/WRT54GL) with DD-WRT(http://www.dd-wrt.com) being installed. I ran "iperf" on two laptops associated wireless with the Linksys-AP, one laptop running the old madwifi-driver, one running ath5k. Both reached around 27Mbit/s with iperf and the Linksys-AP, while the iperf-server was on another machine for not blasting the AP with CPU-load due to iperf. Then - same setup with an AP based on an ALIX-board from PC-Engines(http://pcengines.ch/alix3d2.htm). Data rates with iperf only up to 6Mbit/s. The AP shows: # iw dev wlan0 station dump Station xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (on wlan0) inactive time: 23559 ms rx bytes: 15480534 rx packets: 10217 tx bytes: 20534 tx packets: 112 signal: -33 dBm tx bitrate: 11.0 MBit/s So the bitrate is far too low to gain higher values, but the AP is placed 3m line-of-sight next to the laptop and still the value for tx bitrate is this bad. I would suggest it being higher. How come? And why is the Linksys so much faster with the same laptops associated? 2. Signal strength measurements: In addition, the signal levels are in general about 10dBm lower than the ones of the Linksys if I start moving around. I made no adjustments at the tx power rates - neither at the Linksys nor at the Atheros-device. And still, I observe this: I am using a program called airview from Ubiquity to analyze the traffic and strength of signals in the air: http://www.ubnt.com/airview What I can observe is, that as long as the Atheros-AP only transmits beacons, its output power is around 5dBm below the power measured once there is traffic on the interface (I am doing a simple "ping <IP> -f"). The client is situated far away from both the AP and the measuring Laptop with "airview" in order not to disturb the measurement. The problem I would suggest from this measurement is, that I a client standing quite far away from the AP not finding the AP as long as it only transmits beacons - although the signal would still be good enough since the output power would be higher, if there was traffic. And in fact - I can observe this problem. If I move far away from the AP, at a certain point I can still receive beacons from the Linksys-machine, but no more beacons from the Atheros-AP with ath5k. So the client won't associate with the Atheros ath5k-AP, but with the Linksys. If I associate with the Atheros-AP before, there will still be a connection with data throughput possible. Am I wrong? How to put up the output power while transmitting beacons? In general, the Linksys is according to my tests more powerful than the Atheros-AP. At least with my current setup. I'd like to turn this around and make the Atheros-AP become stronger ;-) Thanks for any hint, Dennis Borgmann -- 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
