11g turbo mode, not possible?

squarepusher · Dec 12, 2005, 6:18 PM

Hi
Have lost alot of sleep and over this and my girlfriend is starting to get a bit agitated :)
So I would really appreciate if someone could answer my questions.
I'm currently running pfsense 0.94.4 and using an atheros based pci adapter (ar5212), I use the same type of adapter on my client and I get a link speed of 54Mb/s. But I can't get it to connect at 108Mb/s.

Heres the output from ifconfig ath0 list channel
Channel 1 : 2412 Mhz 11g Channel 8 : 2447 Mhz 11g
Channel 2 : 2417 Mhz 11g Channel 9 : 2452 Mhz 11g
Channel 3 : 2422 Mhz 11g Channel 10 : 2457 Mhz 11g
Channel 4 : 2427 Mhz 11g Channel 11 : 2462 Mhz 11g
Channel 5 : 2432 Mhz 11g Channel 12 : 2467 Mhz 11g
Channel 6 : 2437 Mhz 11g Channel 13 : 2472 Mhz 11g
Channel 7 : 2442 Mhz 11g
No turbo capable channels are listed.

If i run sysctl -a | grep -E '(^hw|^dev).ath' i get this output:
hw.ath.hal.swba_backoff: 0
hw.ath.hal.sw_brt: 10
hw.ath.hal.dma_brt: 2
hw.ath.hal.version: 0.9.16.3
hw.ath.debug: 0
hw.ath.regdomain: 0
hw.ath.countrycode: 0
hw.ath.xchanmode: 1
hw.ath.outdoor: 1
hw.ath.calibrate: 30
hw.ath.dwell: 200
dev.ath.0.%desc: Atheros 5212
dev.ath.0.%driver: ath
dev.ath.0.%location: slot=12 function=0
dev.ath.0.%pnpinfo: vendor=0x168c device=0x0013 subvendor=0x1458 subdevice=0xe911 class=0x020000
dev.ath.0.%parent: pci0
dev.ath.0.smoothing_rate: 95
dev.ath.0.sample_rate: 10
dev.ath.0.countrycode: 0
dev.ath.0.regdomain: 48
dev.ath.0.debug: 0
dev.ath.0.slottime: 9
dev.ath.0.acktimeout: 48
dev.ath.0.ctstimeout: 48
dev.ath.0.softled: 0
dev.ath.0.ledpin: 0
dev.ath.0.ledon: 0
dev.ath.0.ledidle: 2700
dev.ath.0.txantenna: 1
dev.ath.0.rxantenna: 1
dev.ath.0.diversity: 1
dev.ath.0.txintrperiod: 5
dev.ath.0.diag: 0
dev.ath.0.tpscale: 0
dev.ath.0.tpc: 0
dev.ath.0.rfsilent: 1
dev.ath.0.rfkill: 1

Have been told that the country code might stop me from running 108Mb/s, but that can't be the case cause it's set to 0.
I also tried swapping cards between my XP computer and pfSense firewall, thinking that the windows drivers might program the eeprom in some way enabling turbo mode, but that didn't help either.
The drivers that I'm running on my XP machine are 4.1.102.1095. The channel om my firewall is set to 6, because I read somwhere that it might help (it didn't hehe).
Oh and the wireless NIC's I'm running is called Gigabyte GN-WPEAG.
Please let me know asap If have missed posting som vital information.

hoba · Dec 12, 2005, 9:01 PM

We lost turbo g mode somewhere abround the 0.8x releases by using the latest drivers. However the new drivers support more cards and configurations. Hopefully the driver will provide turbo modes later on again. There is nothing you can do about it atm. Sorry :-\

squarepusher · Dec 12, 2005, 10:53 PM

@hoba:

We lost turbo g mode somewhere abround the 0.8x releases by using the latest drivers. However the new drivers support more cards and configurations. Hopefully the driver will provide turbo modes later on again. There is nothing you can do about it atm. Sorry :-\

Thank you!! this has been driving me nuts. I just wanted an answer and I got it :)
Does the drivers support 11a turbo mode? Tried one system with an linux live-cd and I didn't get any turbo mode either, so I guess that the problem lies within the HAL.

hoba · Dec 12, 2005, 11:42 PM

Yes, it's a driver issue. My system is reporting turbo a channels but they don't work. We have to wait for some driver magic to happen here.

$ ifconfig ath0 list channel
Channel 1 : 2412 Mhz 11g Channel 48 : 5240 Mhz 11a
Channel 2 : 2417 Mhz 11g Channel 50 : 5250 Mhz 11a Turbo
Channel 3 : 2422 Mhz 11g Channel 52 : 5260 Mhz 11a
Channel 4 : 2427 Mhz 11g Channel 56 : 5280 Mhz 11a
Channel 5 : 2432 Mhz 11g Channel 58 : 5290 Mhz 11a Turbo
Channel 6 : 2437 Mhz 11g Channel 60 : 5300 Mhz 11a
Channel 7 : 2442 Mhz 11g Channel 64 : 5320 Mhz 11a
Channel 8 : 2447 Mhz 11g Channel 149 : 5745 Mhz 11a
Channel 9 : 2452 Mhz 11g Channel 152 : 5760 Mhz 11a Turbo
Channel 10 : 2457 Mhz 11g Channel 153 : 5765 Mhz 11a
Channel 11 : 2462 Mhz 11g Channel 157 : 5785 Mhz 11a
Channel 36 : 5180 Mhz 11a Channel 160 : 5800 Mhz 11a Turbo
Channel 40 : 5200 Mhz 11a Channel 161 : 5805 Mhz 11a
Channel 42 : 5210 Mhz 11a Turbo Channel 165 : 5825 Mhz 11a
Channel 44 : 5220 Mhz 11a

MdeWendt · Dec 13, 2005, 7:08 AM

Hello hoba,

why do you have so much 802.11a channels?
Is it realy a driver problem? I have a 802.11a wlan miniPCI cards wich supports in my PC all availiable channels (like in your list). But in a WRAP board it only support 4 channels in the 5GHz band.
And why is pfsense so slow when i save some configuration on the webGUI (it takes about 2minutes or so)? with monowall it takes 10s.

Martin

squarepusher · Dec 13, 2005, 9:02 AM

@MdeWendt:

Hello hoba,

why do you have so much 802.11a channels?
Is it realy a driver problem? I have a 802.11a wlan miniPCI cards wich supports in my PC all availiable channels (like in your list). But in a WRAP board it only support 4 channels in the 5GHz band.
And why is pfsense so slow when i save some configuration on the webGUI (it takes about 2minutes or so)? with monowall it takes 10s.

Martin

Might be the countrycode that restricts some channels, try running sysctl dev.ath.0.
You can use this site to lookup the country code http://www.unicode.org/onlinedat/countries.html

hoba · Dec 13, 2005, 9:38 PM

@MdeWendt:

Hello hoba,

why do you have so much 802.11a channels?
Is it realy a driver problem? I have a 802.11a wlan miniPCI cards wich supports in my PC all availiable channels (like in your list). But in a WRAP board it only support 4 channels in the 5GHz band.
And why is pfsense so slow when i save some configuration on the webGUI (it takes about 2minutes or so)? with monowall it takes 10s.

Martin

Never had to wait 2 minutes for changes to be applied. Depending what they are it can take about 20-25 seconds but not longer.

My card is a cm9 baught from pc engines directly. With older versions several of the listed g-channels were turbo too. Hopefully that will come back soon. However, a wrap will NEVER be able to push something of that speed, nor will a wireless link provide that speed in turbo mode. These values are theoretical.

squarepusher · Dec 24, 2005, 2:26 PM

I'm now trying out the latesta madwifi drivers in linux and there now seems to be support for turbo mode in 11g, when will the drivers (HAL) be updated in pfSense?
btw Merry Christmas

sullrich · Dec 24, 2005, 6:43 PM

@squarepusher:

I'm now trying out the latesta madwifi drivers in linux and there now seems to be support for turbo mode in 11g, when will the drivers (HAL) be updated in pfSense?
btw Merry Christmas

When Sam updates the firmware in FreeBSD.org