From owner-freebsd-drivers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Aug 9 18:42:52 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-drivers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8AC76106566C for ; Thu, 9 Aug 2012 18:42:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jakobp78@gmail.com) Received: from mail-gh0-f182.google.com (mail-gh0-f182.google.com [209.85.160.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 481118FC0C for ; Thu, 9 Aug 2012 18:42:51 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ghrr13 with SMTP id r13so967368ghr.13 for ; Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:42:51 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=3OtkkIshlb8TWC4rJ4gSw6Gofa4jlay6V5m/DuFKZ0o=; b=uqS1Um+tOlSWHd0k4w7XfSPoIa9rpxZTxHueQ1qudCdxVSgXGWZvHXxgDw6NFTc1M5 PJXoZXvkVVlwpb7rtEqFZF9cTzyPxF6YcforuePSG2BzTpsMbnmzpHdKJt80WyKY6xK+ 43C+w8BN33Vz+81Bf9fBE73sUWwqGKH2DAD5+9lS4kk2yWVvEby6ox3IXIbYQhl2JCqV eqmexAf838GN72HTZungclwguUTcGZiimayqjhob/LMImtnH0W0rA1dG8HOXJFeEzcNJ McqhHNVGBupbD2XDhAvymCtatUu/bm5gHFNdGQ8reDu2VqTZFQVtVQ76SmLSr4+GwZw9 dU1Q== MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.60.169.75 with SMTP id ac11mr516838oec.12.1344537771342; Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:42:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.182.13.198 with HTTP; Thu, 9 Aug 2012 11:42:51 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2012 20:42:51 +0200 Message-ID: From: Jakob Pedersen To: freebsd-drivers@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: Driver problem ral0 signal strength rt61pci/rt2561s chipset X-BeenThere: freebsd-drivers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Writing device drivers for FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2012 18:42:52 -0000 Dear all, Firstly, please accept my apologies in advance if I am posting in the wrong place but hope to get some help with this: I have a laptop, cheap oldish Packard Bell EasyNote R1926, on which I would like to run FreeBSD. To get to the point: Except for minor acpi issues I can live with, everything works and runs well, with the exception of the build-in wifi card. It's being detected and can be used, yet moved about 4 metres away from the router signal disappears. It appears as if some gain settings for the hardware have not been set correctly. When laptop is placed just next to router the signal is measured to 70%, which is -54 dB; when moving away from the router the signal gradually drops and is lost at about -95 dB. The same laptop using the linux driver rt2x00 (which works perfectly) shows -20 dBm just next to the router and -70dBm, where FreeBSD is losing connection (same numbers using wifi usb-dongle with OpenBSD from same laptop). The wifi chipset is RaLink RT61PCI (old name) aka RT2561s which is supposed to be supported by the ral driver. The behavior of the ral driver on this laptop is the same for PCBSD 9, OpenBSD 5.1 and DragonFlyBSD 3.1, so it doesn't come across as OS-dependent issue My assumption now is that this could be caused by gain settings in the driver. I have been trying to compare the source code for the linux rt2x00 driver and the ral driver, but nothing really seems obvious to me as relating to gain settings; I was hoping I could tweak and re-compile the ral driver, to make it work as good as the linux driver and have well-functioning BSD laptop. So finally my question: Is my assumption above likely to be correct, that this is a driver related issue? In this case I hope someone would have some tips to fix this, or at least point me to antenna/gain settings in the ral-driver source code. Thanking in advance, Jakob