Wireless PCMCIA problems with 4.8-RELEASE on a Gateway 5100

[Aric Allen]

Hello!  I'm having some difficulty with my wireless PCMCIA cards in FreeBSD
4.8-RELEASE.  Whenever I plug them in, and pccardd is run (either explicitly
or daemon), my machine will lock up after it tries to initiate the wi
driver.  There is no error message, and I cannot switch to a different
console, even when the card is ejected.  I have tried this both with a
generic PRISM III card that I configured in /etc/pccard.conf, and with a
Netgear MA401, which was recognized in the /etc/defaults/pccard.conf list.
I've looked through the archives here, and I have found similar locking
problems with others using the Gateway 5100 and it's TI1250 cardbus, but I
haven't been able to actually find a thread that offers a solution (aside
from buying a better laptop :).

Here is what I have tried (one at a time, individually):

#1- In /boot/loader.conf, I set the following options...
	hw.pcic.intr_path="1"
	hw.pcic.irq="0"

#2- I restricted the irq range in /etc/pccard.conf to 10 and 11, which were
the only IRQs not referenced in dmesg.

#3- I made sure PnP OS was set to "NO" in my BIOS.

#4- I put in a 3Com Megahertz 56K Modem, which was recognized and did NOT
lock up the system (which would work fine if I actually still had dial
up...)

#5- I prayed to the rain gods to bless my system, and sacrificed my children
to the snow demons...which was fun in and of itself, but accomplished
little.

I've already undone the above changes, and this is a new install, so I'm
essentially starting from scratch.  Thanks in advance for any advice.

Aric Allen


-- Sometimes you get the weasel, and sometimes the weasel gets YOU!