Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 15:49:50 +0200 From: "Peter Schuller" <peter.schuller@infidyne.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: IBM T40p: em0/ath0 failure and PCMCIA difficulties Message-ID: <20030716134950.GA23943@infidyne.com>
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Hello, I recently installed FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE[1] on a an IBM ThinkPad T40p. To my surprise, none of the three different network interfaces I was hoping would work do. I was thinking I would post here first for comments before I start submitting bug reports and such, in case they are known problems or easily solved. I'll detail one at a time. First off, em0. The gigabit nic supposedly works in 5.0 but broke[2] at least on the IBM X31 somewhere between that and 5.1. I am having the exact same problem - the driver complaining about invalid EEPROM checksum. I tried copying the driver from 5.0 and running it in CURRENT (see below on the 5.1->CURRENT transition), which almost worked. The driver recognized the card and got loaded, but kept printing link up/down messages to te kernel log (network traffic non-operational). I also tried commenting out the EEPROM cheksum check in the new driver; it then failed upon reading the MAC address claiming it was invalid. As far as I can determine, this bug doesn't seem to be in GNATS. Unless someone says otherwise, I'll submit a bug report on this. Is there a workaround perhaps? Secondly, the built-in wireless NIC doesn't work. I was actually expecting this to not work; but support for the Atheros Communications chipset was recently added in CURRENT[3], so I decided to cvsup CURRENT[4] and try it. I added the "ath" and "ath_hal" devices to the kernel config and recompiled. The driver found the card fine, and all ifconfig commands completed successfully. However the WiFi indicator light on the laptop remains turned off, and the interface never gets associated with any wireless LAN in the area, even though I'm pretty darned sure I'm using the correct settings (WEP and all). I suspect it's a matter of "activating" the NIC somehow. Is this a driver problem or is there some generic way to do this in FreeBSD that I'm not aware of? My experience with *working* wireless in *BSD is limited to an Orinoco card on NetBSD - where ifconfig up was all that was required to activate it, so I don't know if I'm missing something or if there's a real problem. Thirdly and lastly, since I was expecting to have trouble with the built-in WiFi card I always planned on using an older Orinocco card for the near future. However, as it turns out, I get a kernel trap 12[5] whenever I boot with the card inserted into a slot. The same thing happens with two other cards (one old 3Com ethernet card, and a new modern Atheros based PCMCIA). The kernel trap happens while the kernel is still booting - userland stuff never gets a chance to start. HOWEVER, and I noticed this now sa I type, if I insert the card after the system has already booted, it works perfectly! I can hotswap back and forth without difficulties, I just can't boot with any card inserted. Similarly, when the internal Bluetooth card is enabled, I get the same kernel trap during boot sa I do with a PCMCIA card inserted, even though I believe the Bluetooth card is on the USB bus. [1] I specifically wanted 5.1-RELEASE or newer because of the Bluetooth support. Also I understand 4.x doesn't support CardBus at all. I am however aware that 5.x is still not considered the production release. [2] http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/FreeBSD/net/2003-05/0003.html [3] http://news.gw.com/freebsd.current/39492 [4] Yes, I know this isn't recommended for non-developers and such; but then again if it means I can submit a bug report for the driver, it doesn't hurt. [5] "page fault whilte in kernel mode", fault code "supervisor write, page not present". Current process = "0 (swapper)" and stupped at = "ithread_add_handler+0x143: movl %ebx,0(%eax)" Any thoughs/comments are highly appreciated! Thanks! -- / Peter Schuller, InfiDyne Technologies HB PGP userID: 0xE9758B7D or 'Peter Schuller <peter.schuller@infidyne.com>' Key retrival: Send an E-Mail to getpgpkey@scode.org E-Mail: peter.schuller@infidyne.com Web: http://www.scode.org ----- End forwarded message ----- -- / Peter Schuller, InfiDyne Technologies HB PGP userID: 0xE9758B7D or 'Peter Schuller <peter.schuller@infidyne.com>' Key retrival: Send an E-Mail to getpgpkey@scode.org E-Mail: peter.schuller@infidyne.com Web: http://www.scode.org
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