rt2x00.serialmonkey.com

Hi, recently I have updated my slackware from 11.0.0 (kernel 2.6.20.XX, rt2500 independent driver) to slackware 13.1 64 bit (default kernel 2.6.33.4)
The RT2500pci driver was loaded ok, my wifi connection was well configured (iwconfig+wpa_supplicant), BUT I have AWFULL connection speed - less than 10ko in average.
Then I have begun my tests on Slackware 13.1 32 bit, 64 bit, Xubuntu 10.04, freeBSD (only seen dmesg messages that issued some warning about the IRQ used). I have also tried the last snapshot for rt2500 from kernel.org, kernel 2.6.34.1, default kernel frum slack - 2.6.33.4, and an old one 2.6.27.48.
I all the cases the speed was awful, the ping signals many packet loss, sometimes the name resolution doesn't work even if the ping to NS is OK. Sometimes even the ping doesn't respond at all or returns network unreachable on an address that was just tested and was OK.
Tried 'irqpoll' option to kernel but the driver not associate anymore. Tried some ACPI/APM all PM off and nothing changes. FreeBSD locks on ACPI off. Tried also to switch in bios the IRQ from auto to PCI.

My motherboard is an ECS RS480-M an old amd board. My rt2500 is the msi 54G2 pci card.

I have tested also a rt2500usb from assus wlink167g i think, and this one was performed worse that my PCI card - no network found, lost packets, 0 bytes connection. My main intention is to make the PCI card to perform better, so I am not interested in this adapter yet (2500usb).

The annoying thing is that today morning the WIFI card was OK in slackware 13.1 32bit. Same install without any modification from yesterday when it was not working.

The last thing I did was a shutdown (application button, not in terminal) in xubuntu 10.04 (live cd) where the tests were not good. The shutdown didn't shut off completely the machine and I pushed off the on/off button.

Today the ping was 1-2 ms to the gateway (my switch - direct link - first hop), without packet loss. Google was around 20-30 ms, without loss.
Slackupdate was around 600-800k with peeks at 1.2M sometimes, which is OK.
After some time the ping reports 14-40% packet loss even to my gateway, but the wget from slackupdate is stable. Other sites works well too.
I am not sure how long this situation will last.
I have run the some tests on my laptop too - that is similar - AMD platform with rt2500, but there all things works and worked flawlessly (test on ubuntu/xubuntu 9.04, 9.10, 10.04 - actual os) If someone is interested I can give more details on my tests.



My BIG Question is: Is there anything I can do to trace down this bug??? For me is a 'state' in the wifi card that not change, the init/shutdown phase that is not completely done well on my kind of hardware.

some updates:
- on my desktop I have launched a big wget and the transfer rate was at the beginning around 600ko, after 100Mo around 90ko, and after another 20-30Mo was stabilized at the old rate ...around 6-10ko.
- I have rebooted and the card didn't initialized well, so my download rate is still around 10ko
- I have made the same test on my laptop, but after 500ko the rate was stabilized around 100k. If I quit and retry the same operation the rate keeps at 100k, but after a reboot the card is correct initialized and works at the normal rate.
- I insist on the fact that on slackware 11, kernel 2.6.20.7, driver rt2500-cvs-2007042205, my desktop was always stable and a download from the same source was around 600K and stable for 4-8 Go.