Wifi Issues/DMA allocation errors

ret_t

Hi

I've got a RCC-VE 2440 board and a WLE200NX Wifi card and I got major WiFi issues. I played around with it a bit and figured out the following:

When inserting the WiFi card in the PCI slot at the back of the board (the one with the SIM card), the card is recognized and I can configure it, but I can't see the network. I tried with different WiFi analyzers, there's nothing detected.
When inserting the WiFi card in the PCI slot at the front, the card is recognized, I can set the system up and Wifi works, however the connection is not stable: It drops about one in 3 to 5 pings. I tired with different antennas, no luck. I also switched off all other radio transmitters in the house. I get a lot of "out errors" on the Interface status page. I googled a bit and came across the athstats command. This one shows a lot of " tx failed 'cuz dma buffer allocation failed" and " tx frames with no ack marked" errors. I assume this is not normal. Could this be a dodgy Wifi card?

Thanks for any help.

Reto

Interface status:

WIFI interface (opt1, ath0)
Status up
MAC address 04:f0:21:16:93:b3
IPv4 address 192.168.1.2
Subnet mask IPv4 255.255.255.0
IPv6 Link Local fe80::6f0:21ff:fe16:93b3
MTU 1500
Media autoselect mode 11ng <hostap>Channel 8
SSID TEST
BSSID cc:3a:61:48:b5:5a
Rate 21M
RSSI 10.0
In/out packets 2287/484811 (298 KB/67.54 MB)
In/out packets (pass) 2287/484811 (298 KB/67.54 MB)
In/out packets (block) 97/0 (18 KB/0 bytes)
In/out errors 11/226576
Collisions 0
Bridge (bridge0) learning

[2.2.4-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/root: athstats
athstats: ioctl: ath0: Invalid argument
athstats: ioctl: ath0: Invalid argument
18672 data frames received
270498 data frames transmit
99 tx frames with an alternate rate
2150 short on-chip tx retries
10456 long on-chip tx retries
2186 tx failed 'cuz too many retries
424 mib overflow interrupts
3 stuck beacon conditions
MCS12 current transmit rate
227711 tx failed 'cuz dma buffer allocation failed
263409 tx frames with no ack marked
1876 tx frames with short preamble
1420 rx failed 'cuz of bad CRC
1 rx failed 'cuz frame too short
51313 beacons transmitted
174 periodic calibrations
-0/+0 TDMA slot adjust (usecs, smoothed)
39 rssi of last ack
37 avg recv rssi
-96 rx noise floor
5213 tx frames through raw api
414 A-MPDU sub-frames received
6 CRC errors for non-last A-MPDU subframes
1734 Frames transmitted with HT Protection
218885 cabq frames transmitted
42639 cabq xmit overflowed beacon interval
Antenna profile:
[0] tx 267812 rx 5
[1] tx 0 rx 18667</hostap>

Derelict

Get an AP. A real AP. One with an ethernet port and a radio or two. Don't know when ESF will purge this insanity.

tx failed 'cuz too many retries
tx failed 'cuz dma buffer allocation failed

Any wonder why it doeznt w3rk?

ret_t

I was thinking of getting a "real AP" if there's no easy solution to this. Just wondering if anyone else has similar issues.

Guest

I was thinking of getting a "real AP" if there's no easy solution to this.

Yep this could be a really good chance for you.

Just wondering if anyone else has similar issues.

For sure they have because pfSense and WLAN are not even the best "friends"!
You get it working well or you could get in trouble for ever and don´t manage it.

There are often three miniPCIe slots inside, likes in the PC Engines APU or SG-xxxx units and;

the slot with the SIM cards is often reserved for modems (bonded to the SIM slot)
the slot near the SATA port(s) is reserved to the mSATAs (shared Port)
the other free slot is mostly free for usage likes WiFi and other cards

So you see choosing the right slot is not only a game, then more a "must be".

ret_t

Problem Solved:

I got a new wifi card (it got a AR5B125 chip) and everything works perfect now, however it still doesn't work in the PCI slot with the SIM card (same issue as the original card, no errors, just no wifi singal).

I guess the other card is defective.