ATHEROS -- 802.11a/b/g Wireless Lan Mini PCI Express -- 6459-CTO

[freebsd_user at guice.ath.cx]

On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 01:07:49PM -0700, Sam Leffler wrote:
> Alexandre "Sunny" Kovalenko wrote:
> >On Sun, 2008-09-14 at 04:04 -0400, freebsd_user at guice.ath.cx wrote:
> >  
> >>>>> > MACHINE: THINKPAD T61P
> >>>>> > MACHINE TYPE: 6459-CTO
> >>>>> > NETWORK ADAPTER: 11a/b/g Wireless Lan Mini PCI Express (windows)
> >>>>> > -
> >>>>> > FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE i386 <== fresh install
FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE-p4 i386 GENERIC
> >>>>> > -
> >>>>> > ==> pciconf -l -v |grep -i atheros
> >>>>> >     vendor     = 'Atheros Communications Inc.'
> >>>>> >     device     = 'AR5212 Atheros AR5212 802.11abg wireless'
> >>==
> >>/etc/rc.conf | grep route
> >>defaultrouter="192.168.1.1"
> >>==
> >>
> >>    
> >What does 'ifconfig ath0 list scan' say? Do you know parameters of the
> >base station you are trying to associate with?

ifconfig ath0 list scan: lists numerous access points
including the one of which We're attempting to connect.

> >
> >Few notes:
> >-- on my ThinkPad X60, I have not seen wireless led lit up yet, which
> >never prevented wireless from working ;)

This is a good thing; working :-)

> >-- there is a setting for Fn-F5 (only available through Windows),

This is news to me, thank you.

> > I always keep it as "Turn all radios on or of" or some such thing.
> >-- there is a slider switch located at the front of my X60 which does
> >kill all radios, I do not know whether T61 has one or not. If it does,
> >you might want to check its position.

Switch (all radios) is on, this is why the 'bluetooth'
led lights.

> >
> >  
> If you have a 5416/5418 part I think the led is driven by the driver 
> using the gpio pins.  If you have the 0.10.5.10 hal you can try:

When you say 5416/5418 I'm assuming your speaking about
the Atheros device?  If so this machine has a 5212.
> 
> sysctl dev.ath.0.softled=1
> 
> It may also be necessary to toggle the polarity of the gpio pins; if the 
> led doesn't operate right away (when wireless is working) then check the 
> nearby sysctl knobs.

The above 'softled' knob had no affect.  there were at
least 2-other knobs that did have an affect on the
'led' only.  I'd rather concentrate on the tx/rx of the
device itself.  It now appears the device is partially
functioning because the 'list scan' sees other access
points nearby... 

Agreed?

> rfkill processing has never been fully implemented in the ath driver.  
> Vendors implement this in various ways and sometimes it's wired s.t. the 
> driver is not involved.  On some laptops the rfkill switch is wired to a 
> gpio pin and pushing the button generates an interrupt that ath can 
> field--but when I tried to get it working on Robert Watson's laptop long 
> ago it didn't work right so I never committed the mods.
> 
>    Sam

==> On this T61p mach-type 6459-CTO, here are the
sysctl knobs that have had a visible effect
(off/flicker/on) for the wireless nic led only (Atheros)
and not the bluetooth led.

Once I toggled these knobs the hardware switch was not
able to turn the led off again and neither were the
knobs that turned the wireless nic's led on.  I'll see
what happens after rebooting the machine; whether the
led returns to 'off'.

At this point I'll assume the device is working while
in FreeBSD and I'll try and configure WPA to see if
this is the current issue I need to resolve, that is
unless you see something here I have overlooked.

> 
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