Are you using pfSense Wireless? Tell us about your setup.

jjstecchino

There are several people experiencing a significant amount of IN/OUT errors, slow wifi performance and/or disconnection on pfSense boxes.
It is not clear if the issue is related to hardware, atheros driver or a combination of the two.
It would be helpful for anybody willing to help, to share infromation about their setup. It is particularly important if you are not having any problem at all…
In particular info about motherboard, memory, wireless card, wireless chipset, wireless mode (AP, Infrastructure, ad-hoc), type of problem (none, IN/OUT errors, slow wireless performance, disconnections, etc), athstats output would be helpful.

Thanks in advance to everyone taking the time to share this information.

I will give my setup as an example:

Motherboard: Alix2c3
Memory: 256K
Wireless Card: Compex WLM54G 200mW
Wireless Chipset: Atheros AR2413
Wireless Mode: AP
Problem: IN/OUT errors, Slow perf., Disconnections

$ athstats
399188 tx management frames
2692 tx frames discarded prior to association
6 tx stopped 'cuz no xmit buffer
91 tx discarded empty frame
269 tx failed 'cuz FIFO underrun
35879 tx failed 'cuz bogus xmit rate
45155 tx frames with rts enabled
356466 tx frames with an alternate rate
6485 tx frames with 11g protection
554911 rx failed 'cuz of FIFO overrun
9 rx failed 'cuz MIC failure
105 rx failed 'cuz frame too short
203845 rx management frames
438422 beacon setup failed 'cuz no mbuf
379655705 beacons transmitted
1578 periodic calibration failures
9844 tx used alternate antenna
Antenna profile:
[2] tx 220307 rx 173037
[3] tx 181263 rx 56967

IBM P3 733 MHZ 380mb ram

wireless card is
an0: <cisco 350="" systems="" series="" wireless="" lan="" adapter="">at port 0x7000-0x703f irq 9 function 0 config 5 on pccard0

not sure on how to check what driver that uses but my guess is "an(4)"
running in AD-Hoc mode

working like a charm, 3days since reboot
In/out packets 269217/440190 (33.49 MB/321.61 MB)
In/out errors 0/3
Collisions 0

/F</cisco>

serialdie

Here is my info with the same problems as you posted…

WLM54SAG High Power: 200mW 802.11a/b/g mini PCI Card
Atheros Chipset

pfSense:~# athstats
4139 tx management frames
3314 tx frames discarded prior to association
3 tx stopped 'cuz no xmit buffer
1635 tx failed 'cuz FIFO underrun
9160 tx failed 'cuz bogus xmit rate
5 tx frames with rts enabled
4949 tx frames with an alternate rate
797 tx frames with 11g protection
32954 rx failed 'cuz of FIFO overrun
1 rx failed 'cuz frame too short
11600 rx management frames
442805 beacon setup failed 'cuz no mbuf
816714256 beacons transmitted
1554 periodic calibration failures
405 tx used alternate antenna
Antenna profile:
[2] tx 4186 rx 46796
[3] tx 1630 rx 3039

fSense:~# cat /tmp/ath0_setup.sh
#!/bin/sh

pfSense wireless configuration script.

enable shell debugging

set -x
/bin/ps awwuxx | grep hostapd | grep ath0 | awk '{ print $2 }' | xargs kill

/sbin/ifconfig ath0 down
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 mediaopt hostap
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 mode '11g'
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 channel '11'
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 -mediaopt turbo
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 ssid 'pfSense-nUll'
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 -hidessid
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 -mediaopt adhoc
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 protmode 'off'
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 -pureg
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 -apbridge
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 -wme
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 authmode open wepmode off
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 txpower '99'
/sbin/ifconfig ath0 up
/usr/sbin/hostapd -B /var/etc/hostapd_ath0.conf

pfSense:~# cat /var/etc/hostapd_ath0.conf
interface=ath0
driver=bsd
logger_syslog=-1
logger_syslog_level=0
logger_stdout=-1
logger_stdout_level=0
dump_file=/tmp/hostapd_ath0.dump
ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
#accept_mac_file=/tmp/hostapd_ath0.accept
#deny_mac_file=/tmp/hostapd_ath0.deny
#macaddr_acl=
ssid=l
debug=
auth_algs=1
wpa=1
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=CCMP TKIP
wpa_group_rekey=60
wpa_gmk_rekey=3600
wpa_strict_rekey=
wpa_passphrase=
ieee8021x=
#Enable the next lines for preauth when roaming. Interface = wired or wireless interface talking to the AP you want to roam from/to
#rsn_preauth=1
#rsn_preauth_interfaces=eth0

wallabybob

Motherboard: GA-PCV2
Memory: 512MB
Wireless Card: TP-Link TL-WN651G
Wireless Chipset: ath0: <atheros 5212="">…
Wireless Mode: AP
Problem: None known
$ athstats
905044 tx management frames
73185 tx frames discarded prior to association
6417 tx failed 'cuz FIFO underrun
71328 tx failed 'cuz bogus xmit rate
810843 tx frames with rts enabled
94307 tx frames with an alternate rate
45 tx frames with 11g protection
5142838 rx failed 'cuz of FIFO overrun
79 rx failed 'cuz frame too short
74587 rx management frames
19003302 beacon setup failed 'cuz no mbuf
379584516 beacons transmitted
64921 periodic calibration failures
8289 tx used alternate antenna
Antenna profile:
[2] tx 506092 rx 219413
[3] tx 465718 rx 3015
$ uptime
8:48AM up 22 days, 13 hrs, 1 user, load averages: 0.22, 0.11, 0.03</atheros>