# NetGear WG511 v3 -- ndiswrapper problems with recent kernels

## ellF

Hello, all.

For the past 9 months, I've been using a Netgear WG511 v3 ("made in China" version) via ndiswrapper. Up until a month or so ago, I had only a few problems, all related to signal strength.

However, recent kernels -- and I use gentoo-sources -- have b0rked my ability to -anything- with the card. I've read all of the posts I could find, and nothing has helped. Essentially, any time I insert the ndiswrapper module or plug in the card, I get the following dumped to my logs:

```

Sep 14 17:22:07 superego PCI: Enabling device 0000:02:00.0 (0000 -> 0002)

Sep 14 17:22:07 superego ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:00.0[A] -> Link [LNKF] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11

Sep 14 17:22:07 superego PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:02:00.0 to 64

Sep 14 17:22:07 superego ndiswrapper: using irq 11

Sep 14 17:22:09 superego ndiswrapper (ndiswrapper_add_pci_device:218): Windows driver couldn't initialize the device (C0010006)

Sep 14 17:22:09 superego ndiswrapper: probe of 0000:02:00.0 failed with error -22

```

Looking at the netwg511.INF file I'm using -- the most recently available from Netgear:

```

DriverVer = 04/06/2004, 2.1.22.0

```

I have tried different driver versions, all to no avail. I miss having wireless access -- suggestions, anyone?

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## ellF

No one has any suggestions? *sigh*

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## 1500

I have similar problems with my Prism Javelin card since I upgraded to 2.6.13. Have you already looked at your kernel messages ? I have found that my kernel disables the shared irq 5 used by the wifi card. So it cannot work. 

Do you see some "nobody cared" or "disabled irq ... " messages in your dmesg output ?

In my case it seems to be a problem with the ehci USB 2.0 driver. While it gets loaded the kernel disables the shared irq 5 used by USB and wifi card. It also causes in my opinion the reboots during the startup process (every second system start) while setting up clock or loading the ndiswrapper modul or mounting local filesystems. The two problems came both with the gentoo-sources-2.6.13 and stayed with r1.

Possibly we have to play something around with different kernel versions or kernel configs.

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## ellF

 *Quote:*   

> I have similar problems with my Prism Javelin card since I upgraded to 2.6.13.

 

Do you receive the same error that I'm seeing, with ndiswrapper failing to initialize the device? Poking about the forums, it seems that this error sometimes comes from using the incorrect driver; I don't think that's what is happening here, but I want to ensure that having ACPI disable the shared IRQ is what's causing ndiswrapper to fail here.

 *Quote:*   

> Do you see some "nobody cared" or "disabled irq ... " messages in your dmesg output ?

 

Yup:

```
Sep 18 22:19:54 superego ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs 7 11) *0, disabled
```

/proc/interrupts says:

```
superego ellf # cat /proc/interrupts 

           CPU0       

  0:   46534252          XT-PIC  timer

  1:      10174          XT-PIC  i8042

  2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade

  5:      66959          XT-PIC  ALI 5451

  8:          3          XT-PIC  rtc

  9:        124          XT-PIC  acpi

 10:    2775071          XT-PIC  radeon@pci:0000:01:00.0

 11:      57501          XT-PIC  yenta, yenta, eth0

 12:    1158489          XT-PIC  i8042

 14:     120734          XT-PIC  ide0

 15:        594          XT-PIC  ide1

NMI:          0 

LOC:          0 

ERR:          0

MIS:          0

```

 *Quote:*   

> Possibly we have to play something around with different kernel versions or kernel configs.

 

Perhaps. It may also be the case that ACPI as a whole is being disabled -- I'm seeing a message to that effect in my kernel messages -- and thus, shared IRQs are being disabled. Hmm.

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## 1500

Yes I have exactly the same error messages when loading the ndiswrapper module. The windows driver is not the problem since it works when the irq of the card is not disabled. 

The disabled irq message from ACPI in your post is not what I meant. I also have such a message, but it is not the reason why ndiswrapper is not working. In my case I  allways have a "nobody cared" message and then the irq gets disabled. 

In the meantime I have partially solved the problem, with the noapic and pci=routeirq boot time parameters in grub.conf and switching back to udev-0.58. 

Now the system almost allways starts with ndiswrapper loaded. It is quite strange, but I randomly stil get the "nobody cared ... irq 5 disabled" messages. 

It still needs some further testing.

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## ellF

 *Quote:*   

> The disabled irq message from ACPI in your post is not what I meant. I also have such a message, but it is not the reason why ndiswrapper is not working. In my case I  allways have a "nobody cared" message and then the irq gets disabled. 

 

Interesting. I -never- get the "nobody cared" message; since we're seeing the same problem, that might not be the cause after all. Let's see what we have in common; here is a list, and I'd be interested in seeing how we line up:

1. ndiswrapper -- currently using version 1.2, have tried 1.0, 0.12 without solving the problem.

2. udev -- currently using version 0.68.

3. noapic flag -- passing lapic to the kernel at boot locks the system when I reach ACPI initialization; currently, I do not have local APIC compiled into the kernel.

4. pci=routeirq flag -- no discernable difference with or without this being passed

Since my last post, I've checked my ACPI dsdt and found only three warnings; I've tried passing my own version via initrd, but it had no effect on the ndiswrapper wooginess. I'll try two more things: first, I'll pass -both- flags you mentioned and see if that helps; second, I'll try playing with udev versions, and see if that has any impact on the ndiswraper driver loading sequence.[/list]

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## ellF

Alas, no combination of kernel flags seems to resolve the problem, nor does upgrading to udev-0.70 nor downgrading to udev-0.58.

*frustrated and discouraged*

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## 1500

I'm sorry for you. Perhaps you should try to completely disable ACPI (acpi=off) at boot time. I've had lots of problems with ACPI , but possibly it is not your problem this time. Since my problems are also not completely solved I'm very disappointed by the current kernel too. Have you already tried the vanilla kernel ? Perhaps it would be worth of a try.

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## mijenix

Hi

I have a WG511 (China Version), too. I didn't had any Problems since I upgraded to the kernel to 2.6.14-rc1.

I can't compile ndiswrapper anymore.

Wich kernel version do u use?

--Mathias

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## ellF

Using the vanilla kernel does not work, as I use reiser4 on all of my mounts. I've been using gentoo-sources with the resierfs patch. Disabling ACPI doesn't seem to help, either -- same problems persist. 

So, it isn't ACPI; I'm very confused as to why this card has stopped working. I'm beginning to suspect a hardware problem -- perhaps the card itself has gone bad? Any suggestions for a good, fully-supported 54Mbps wireless card?

----------

