Re: BCM4313 & brcmsmac & 3.12: only semi-working?

[Michael Tokarev <mjt@tls.msk.ru>]

So, I returned from my newyear trip.  There, I tried to use this my laptop
with many various wifi networks, in hotels, cafes and other places.  And
it never worked.

So I bought an usb wifi adaptor, some cheap old orient model, which worked
MUCH better than the built-in broadcom wifi. Except of 2 issues.

First, the antenna in this usb dongle is small, so signal quality isn't as
good as for the built-in adaptor with good antenna.

And second, which is much more severe, it is an external adaptor plugged
into an usb slot, so it isn't that easy as internal one, but it is very
easy to BREAK the usb slot.  Which is what I did while sitting in a cafe
and someone else walking by.  So now I've one usb port on my laptop broken
now (with very unpleasant large crack on the laptop "body") and the usb
wifi adaptor I bought is broken too.

I also tried to replace the internal wifi card with some non-broadcom
model, but the laptop refused to _boot_ while the card is inserted
(a so-called bios lock).

So the question stands: what is the way to actually use the internal
bcm card, without all those hassles I already encountered?

So far, the expirience was that anything with broadcom inside should
NOT be considered for a purchase, because the issues they gave you
costs much more than a price difference for a different model without
broadcom parts.

Thanks,

/mjt

28.12.2013 16:24, Michael Tokarev wrote:
> Thank you very much for the reply!
> 
> 28.12.2013 13:42, Arend van Spriel wrote:
>> On 12/27/2013 09:58 PM, Michael Tokarev wrote:
>>> Hello.
>>>
>>> Got a Lenovo Thinkpad notebook with the following wifi card:
>>>
>>> 03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4727] (rev 01)
>>>     Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation Device [14e4:0608]
>>>     Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
>>>     Memory at f1600000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
>>>     Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
>>>     Capabilities: [58] Vendor Specific Information: Len=78 <?>
>>>     Capabilities: [48] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
>>>     Capabilities: [d0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
>>>     Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
>>>     Capabilities: [13c] Virtual Channel
>>>     Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 00-00-24-ff-ff-fe-48-d2
>>>     Capabilities: [16c] Power Budgeting <?>
>>>     Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge
> 
> [wifi tx stalls after short usage, 3.12 kernel]
> 
>>> P.S. I tried to find archives of brcm80211 list, or a way to
>>> subscribe to it before posting, but found neither.  Are there
>>> archives?
>>
>> Nope. The brcm80211-dev-list is just a (hopefully) convenient way to get
>> your message to the brcm80211 driver developer within Broadcom. So it is
>> always best to Cc: the linux-wireless list as well.
> 
> Ah.  So the real archives should be for linux-wireless@ not for brcm..@ :)
> Got it, thank you!
> 
>> Now about your card. I am not sure where to start, but can you dump
>> contents for following debugfs file:
>>
>> /sys/kernel/debug/brcmsmac/bcma*/hardware
> 
> # cat /sys/kernel/debug/brcmsmac/bcma0\:0/hardware
> board vendor: 14e4
> board type: 608
> board revision: 1109
> board flags: 402201
> board flags2: 884
> firmware revision: 262032c
> 
>> Also a capture file would be great so if you have wireshark or dumpcap you can add monitor interface and capture 802.11 packets from connect up until the stalls. Commands for adding/enabling monitor interface (ass root/sudo):
>>
>> # iw dev wlan0 interface add mon0 type monitor
>> # ifconfig mon0 up
> 
> Capture file made with tcpdump is attached (gzipped).  I started the
> capture with wlan0 disabled, next I  used `nmcli con up id "wifi mjt"'
> to connect to the AP (named, obviously, "mjt"), and next I tried to
> d/load a file from my website (86.62.121.231).  It d/loaded about 27Kb
> and stalled.  Next I tried to ping the AP (192.168.88.65), which also
> didn't work.
> 
> That's quite a typical behavour of this whole thing.  Sometimes it
> lasts a bit longer, but that's rather unusual and it ends up stalling
> anyway.
> 
> Is it worth the effort to try 3.13-tobe kernel here?  I browsed changes
> in there made in drivers/net/wireless/brcm80211/ compared with 3.12, but
> there aren't many changes related to the softmac version, and most
> looks rather cosmetic.
> 
> Thank you very much for the help!
> 
> /mjt
>