Ural0 Connectivity Issues

[Bryan Liesner]

Olivier Wouters wrote:
> Hi (I have already sent this to freebsd-net previously, however I did 
> not receive any substantial aid there),
>  
> I am relatively new to FreeBSD (I use 6.0-RELEASE-p6) having only used 
> it for approximately 2 months, and have run into a little bit of a 
> problem with my wireless setup.  I am currently using a WUSB54G ver. 4 
> (Linksys Wireless-G USB network adapter: 
> http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1115416827517&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper) 
> 
> with the router ( a Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Broadband Router) being 
> downstairs.  My particular network adapter uses the Ralink RT2500 
> chipset, and the Ural driver, which was ported over from OpenBSD, 
> supports this particular chipset.   I have gotten ural to work on boot 
> by adding the following into /etc/rc.conf: ifconfig_ural0="DHCP netmask 
> 255.255.255.0 ssid holo wepmode on wepkey 0x[wep key] weptxkey 1".  
> However, my connection is rather poor to my router, with my connection 
> strength staying at 7%, intermittently jumping up to 85% every now and 
> then.  I can't quite understand why my connection is so bad, and it is 
> irritating me as I often lose connection entirely and am forced to as 
> root run the the ifconfig line and then dhclient ural0 to regain 
> connection.  Here is the output of dmesg for my nic and usb:
> 
> $ dmesg | grep usb
> usb0: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-A> on uhci0
> usb0: USB revision 1.0
> usb1: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-B> on uhci1
> usb1: USB revision 1.0
> usb2: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-C> on uhci2
> usb2: USB revision 1.0
> usb3: EHCI version 1.0
> usb3: companion controllers, 2 ports each: usb0 usb1 usb2
> usb3: <Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4) USB 2.0 controller> on ehci0
> usb3: USB revision 2.0
> $ dmesg | grep ural0
> ural0: Cisco-Linksys Wireless-G USB Network Adapter, rev 2.00/0.04, addr 2
> ural0: MAC/BBP RT2570 (rev 0x05), RF RT2526
> ural0: Ethernet address: 00:12:17:75:c8:a8
> ural0: if_start running deferred for Giant
> $
> 
> Has anyone encountered similar difficulties or happen to know what may 
> be the cause of this problem.  I had no problems with connection or 
> connection loss in Windows XP, so i am quite clueless for this strange 
> connection loss and low connectivity.  Thanks in advance for any aid.
> 
> Olivier W.
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> 
> 

This is kind of off topic, but I have to give my two cents worth:
RT2500 = garbage;

Two Averatec laptops, equipped with built in RT2500 chipsets, were 
purchased at the same time by me and a friend.

I immediately wiped the disk and installed FreeBSD, my buddy isn't 
very technical and stuck with Windows XP.

The RT2500 aggravated the heck out of me.  The only way I could get a 
decent signal was to put the laptop two feet away from the wireless 
router.  This isn't a FreeBSD issue.  My buddy experienced the same 
weak and dropped signals running Windows XP. We both have WRT54G's as 
well.

I wound up buying a Netgear pccard with the Atheros chipset, and it 
just works flawlessly.  I made my buddy do the same. Kind of pissed I 
had to shell out $50.00, but I'm not aggravated any more.

-Bryan