Linux-Noob Forums

Recently, I purchased a NMP-8602+ miniPCI. I have tried using this card in a HP ze5470us running Fedora Core 6 with the atheros madwifi drivers. The latest madwifi. The drivers compile w/o errors. I am able to bring ath0 up (sometimes) but the system locks often. Most of the time it locks when I try to use the wireless. E.g. capture wireless traffic with airodump-ng or scan for wireless APs in the area. I check the system logs...here are the messages before it locks up.

 

May 28 08:59:29 steve-laptop pcscd: winscard.c:219:SCardConnect() Reader E-Gate 0 0 Not Found

May 28 08:59:29 steve-laptop last message repeated 3 times

also

May 28 09:57:37 steve-laptop kernel: wifi0: ath_reset: unable to reset hardware: '' (HAL status 0)

May 28 09:57:39 steve-laptop kernel: wifi0: rx FIFO overrun; resetting

 

 

I thought perhaps it was my configuration so I tried a popular security tools live distro Backtrack 2 w/ madwifi drivers. The card was detected but the system hangs just like in FC6.

 

I tried another laptop I had handy to see if it was hardware compatibility issues. I just tried a L2005cu. The laptop will not boot as it detects an "unapproved" wireless card.

 

I though i'd try another OS. I installed windows 2000 pro on the same HP ZE5470us. I downloaded the correct Atheros drivers for this card. When I do the install on the drivers (I tried 3 versions) the BSOD appears. The message displayed "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" with some memory addresses. I tried updating the BIOS as well to be sure.

 

So, I'm looking for some advice. Is this card perhaps bad? Incompatible? I am going to take the card to work tomorrow and try it in a few laptops. Have you heard of this incompatibility happening to anyone else?

 

Thanks in Advance!

have you tried updating the laptops bios to latest version ?

Thanks for the input, yes I did update the bios. To the latest version. I went from version 08 to version 25. Still it locks up when I try to do anything with the wireless card. For example. I just booted the bactrack 2 final and iwconfig shows ath0 as an interface. I go to launch Kismet and it locks up. No mouse, no keyboard. Sometimes I've noticed the caps lock light blink as its locked up.

 

Here is another example

Last night I installed FC6 from scratch. Formatted the HD etc. I updated all 253 packages.

I downloaded the newest Madwifi 0.9.3.1.

gzip -d

tar xvf

cd madwifi....

make (no errors)

make install (no errors)

modprobe ath_pci

iwconfig (shows all my interfaces as well as the new ath0

ifconfig ath0 up (lockup!)

 

all of this as root of course

 

Other people have suggested 2 possibilities. 1) the card is defective. 2) the power that card needs is 1amp and perhaps my miniPCI slot does not provide that power. I am willing to try anything to test and find the problem.

 

 

OK, I have been able to test the NMP-8602+ in another similar laptop. I have a Dell Latitude C840 that the card is working. So far.... Perhaps I have answered my own question with some more testing. Its showing 31dBm TX. Odd though, airodump-ng has been working for a few min. Now its not showing those networks. If I bring the ath1 down then up and restart airodump-ng it detects the networks again. Thats no good since sometimes you have to monitor the network for an extended time period.

 

Any ideas? input?