Re: problems with intel wireless cards

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Mon, 2008-11-10 at 11:33 +0100, Bjorge Solli wrote:
> Hi Dan and others,
> 
> we see a problem with intel wireless cards on our Fedora 9 with 2.6.26
> kernel.
> 
> The problem exists (it seems) only on our high end wireless routers, not
> on cheap home access points. I have seen it on both a and g networks, on
> two different brands of routers (both cisco).
> 
> The router receives the first request for connection, but it gives up
> replying after 10 tries. This results in no connection when the wireless
> card times out.
> 
> We are able to "solve" this in these ways:
> - restart NetworkManager service many times until it works.
> - revert to 2.6.25 kernel
> 
> We have seen the same on Ubuntu.
> 
> We first thought it was due to bad firmware, but we have produced the
> same results with all fw we could get our hands on.
> 
> It seems to me that this is not a bug in NM, but in the kernel, and that
> NM sometimes does "The Right Thing" to make it work, and other times
> not. I'm guessing it's a kernel issue, but want your advice on this topic.

There's an Fedora kernel bug open for this one; if you can, try turning
off 802.11n if the AP has 802.11n enabled.  If that fixes the problem,
then it's the same thing that worked for some other people in the bug,
and clearly indicates a kernel driver/stack bug that needs to be fixed.

Dan