# unstable Wireless-LAN: "connected" but nothing gets through

## Lebkoungcity

Hi,

since I replaced the wireless-LAN-Adapter-card in my ThinkPad R40 the connection is sometimes "lost": When I boot the machine the wireless-LAN connection is established and usable at full speed. But sometimes the connection is still shown as "connected" by wicd but no data gets through it. I think it is related to times when there is heavy traffic between the ThinkPad and the desktop-PC which I use as NFS-Server for portage and as distcc-helper for the laptop.

When I used the old Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection 802.11b wireless network adapter card the speed was kind of low (because it is a 802.11b card) but it was stable.

The new card is this:

```
lspci -vv

[...]

02:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)

        Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation Device 0453

        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx-

        Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-

        Latency: 64

        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11

        Region 0: Memory at c0204000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]

        Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge

        Kernel modules: ssb

[...]

```

My kernel is configured with these settings:

```

[...]

<M>   Broadcom 43xx wireless support (mac80211 stack)

[ ]     Broadcom 43xx PCMCIA device support

[ ]   Support for 802.11n (N-PHY) devices

[ ]   Support for low-power (LP-PHY) devices

[ ]   Broadcom 43xx debugging

< >   Broadcom 43xx-legacy wireless support (mac80211 stack)

< >   Broadcom IEEE802.11n PCIe SoftMAC WLAN driver

< >   Broadcom IEEE802.11n embedded FullMAC WLAN driver

< >   IEEE 802.11 for Host AP (Prism2/2.5/3 and WEP/TKIP/CCMP)

<M>   Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection

[*]     Enable promiscuous mode

[ ]     Enable full debugging output in IPW2100 module.

[...]

```

Then I emerged

```

sys-firmware/b43-firmware-5.100.138:b43

```

which pulled in

```

net-wireless/b43-fwcutter-018

```

Afterwards I could use the card but with the described issues...

What can I do to track down the problem? Where should I start?

Greetings from Franconia,

Andy

----------

## Lebkoungcity

After some more reading I've taken out powersave. Now the section 'wireless' under 'Networking support' looks like this:

```

--- Wireless

<*>   cfg80211 - wireless configuration API

[ ]     nl80211 testmode command

[ ]     enable developer warnings

[ ]     cfg80211 regulatory debugging

[ ]     enable powersave by default

[ ]     cfg80211 DebugFS entries

[*]     cfg80211 wireless extensions compatibility

[ ]   lib80211 debugging messages

<*>   Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211)

  Default rate control algorithm (Minstrel)  --->

[ ]   Enable mac80211 mesh networking (pre-802.11s) support

[*]   Enable LED triggers

[ ]   Export mac80211 internals in DebugFS

[ ]   Trace all mac80211 debug messages

[ ]   Select mac80211 debugging features  ----

```

But it's still the same... It's really annoying - right now I emerge libreoffice and it should have been finished for hours but the connection with the distcc-helper-machine was down without a notification...

----------

## Lebkoungcity

OK, I played around with the settings in the kernel and the settings my router provides - but nothing seemed to help.

By accident I discovered that the connection is kept up when I let the ThinkPad ping the other machine all the time.

Might this help to narrow the issue?

Greetings,

Andy

----------

## v_andal

Have you tried downgrading firmware for broadcom card? In my case it solved the issue with stability.

----------

## 666threesixes666

ditto roll back your drivers....  not only does it mess with the bandwidth of the broadcom machine, it also kills everyone elses wifi connections.

----------

## Lebkoungcity

Thank you for your suggestion! Unfortunately, the installed one is the lowest version of sys-firmware/b43-firmware in the portage-tree, so I'd have to get it from somewhere else. Which version would you suggest to try?

edit:

I've already tried it with the other version in portage (6.30.163.46) - the connection was as unstable as with version 5.100.138...

----------

