Atheros Super G / Turbo G / 108 mBit
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Since this is my first posting in this Board, I say "Hello" to everyone!
A few days ago, I switched from m0n0wall to pfSense. Hardware is WRAP 1E-203 with build in TP-Link TL-WN660G (Atheros chipset), both Antennas connected. First I tried 1.2.2 embedded, but I got many IN/OUT errors on ath0 and link quality was poor. After reading this Board, I tried 1.2 embedded, and link quality was ok, but there was no turbo supportet. Now I tried 1.2.3 RC1, link quality is ok too an turbo g seems to be supportet, but not working. In the WebGUI I selected "802.11 g Turbo" and "channel 6 Turbo", but link speed is still 54mBit on my WinXP Client.
When I connect an external AP with Atheros chipset to the WRAP, set it to turbo g on channel 6, the XP Client connect with 108mBit and a copied file need half the time, so XP Client and external AP seems to be ok.
What´s wrong, where is my mistake?
Regards
Marcus -
I´v been snooping around this subject too, but felt like i was bothering due do lag of knowledge. I dont know if pfSense somehow forgot to set the media to use "Turbo" mode when card is support it. This what it gives me when i do ifconfig command;
$ ifconfig ath0
ath0: flags=8943 <up,broadcast,running,promisc,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
ether 00:1b:2f:cf:a7:a0
inet6 fe80::21b:2fff:fecf:a7a0%ath0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>status: associated
ssid HomeWiFi channel 6 (2437 Mhz 11g) bssid 00:1b:2f:cf:a7:a0
authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy MIXED deftxkey 3 AES-CCM 2:128-bit
AES-CCM 3:128-bit txpower 31.5 scanvalid 60 bgscan bgscanintvl 300
bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi11g 7 roam:rate11g 5 protmode RTSCTS burst
dtimperiod 1</hostap></up,broadcast,running,promisc,simplex,multicast>But dont know exactly if this line tell anything about the "miss"
media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g<hostap></hostap>
I rather see it display
media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g<hostap,turbo></hostap,turbo>
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From the man page (http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ath&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+7.2-RELEASE&format=html)
Most chips also support an Atheros Turbo Mode (TM) that operates in the
5Ghz frequency range with 2x the transmit speeds. Some chips also sup-
port Turbo mode in the 2.4Ghz range with 802.11g though this support is
not presently available due to regulatory requirements. (Note that Turbo
modes are, however, only interoperable with other Atheros-based devices.)
…
Atheros' SuperG functionality is not supported. -
dotdash, you are right. But I think (don´t know) this was in the past, because Atheros HAL was closed source and the developer, Sam Leffler, don´t like Turbo G, because it uses almost every frequency available in 802.11g. But since Atheros HAL is open source now, maybe somone has changed this!?
Fakt is, in 1.2 I can´t choose Turbo G, because HAL don´t provide it. In 1.2.3 RC1 I can choose Turbo G, I think because of new open source HAL? But it´s not working.
Maybe I´m totally wrong, I don´t know.
Regards
Marcus -
No one knows?
Anybody there use TurboG? -
I am…it actually was the only way my Atheros card would work.
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Please tell me more! Did you modify something? Or just set turbo and channel 6 in WebGUI? Maybe my card has wrong countrycode?
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Please tell me more! Did you modify something? Or just set turbo and channel 6 in WebGUI? Maybe my card has wrong countrycode?
Maybe I should clarify. The card on my pfsense box is in turbo mode but I don't have any corresponding turbo mode cards in any computers. So, although it is running in turbo mode, I have no idea whether or not it would transfer at that speed.
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That´s really funny. All my Clients can do TurboG, but my AP (pfSense) don´t work with TurboG. ::)
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Turbo mode should be available on channel 6 only. you can try to set tubo mode manually in CLI(shell) to see if it will do so.
try "ifconfig ath0 list caps" from console, it should output somthing like:pfsense:~# ifconfig ath0 list caps ath0=6783edcf <wep,tkip,aes,aes_ccm,ff,turbop,ibss,hostap,ahdemo,txpmgt,shslot,shpreamble,monitor,tkipmic,wpa1,wpa2,burst,wme,bgscan,txfrag></wep,tkip,aes,aes_ccm,ff,turbop,ibss,hostap,ahdemo,txpmgt,shslot,shpreamble,monitor,tkipmic,wpa1,wpa2,burst,wme,bgscan,txfrag>See: "this post" for a extensive explanation of what is listed here
note the TURBOP (Turbo Protocol capablilty) listed.
If you see on the interface config page i web GUI it should list a bunch of available channels. it should also show which channels (if any) are turbo capable. Normally in G mode it will only be channel 6 and it should be listed as the last choice of the 2.4GHz channels in the channel list, if your card is 802.11a capable it will also list the 802.1a channels and on the bottom it will list the 802.11a turbo capable channels.
Also be aware that the interface will never report 108 as speed, it will allways be 54, with turbo it will connect as 54 turbo. Some manufacturers will list it as 108, but the real speed will never be anything but 54 with or without turbo mode (or 2X mode if you like).
Hope this clears it up for you.
