Using a Intel 3945ABG Wireless chip inside a Sony Vaio laptop. My wireless router is configured as dualband for my ssid. The driver finds the ssid. If it's on the 2.4 GHz band, it stays connected for a while but than disconnects and switches to the 5GHz band, which is not supported by Intel 3945ABG, so it disconnects, connects back to the 2.4 Ghz band and so fort ... Link to discussion I had with the developer via the wireless mailing list : <http://docs.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?CAJ-Vmo==p55BhLLAWyH0-2NzBHfn8vfXH=1B9b6+iBf=pCDqbw>
I see similar behavior on iwn 6205 too. It keeps trying 5GHz and only goes to 2.4Ghz when I do "ifconfig wlan0 channel 1:ht/20" It should at least try 2.4 after X number of unsuccessful retries on 5Ghz. Aug 26 09:53:15 flymockour-l7 kernel: iwn0: <Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205> mem 0xf5100000-0xf5101fff irq 17 at device 0.0 on pci3 Aug 26 09:53:26 flymockour-l7 kernel: ifa_del_loopback_route: deletion failed: 48 Aug 26 09:53:27 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43306]: Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant Aug 26 09:53:27 flymockour-l7 kernel: wlan0: Ethernet address: 08:11:96:f9:b2:ec Aug 26 09:53:27 flymockour-l7 kernel: iwn0: iwn_read_firmware: ucode rev=0x12a80601 Aug 26 09:53:30 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: Trying to associate with 6c:f3:7f:67:ac:57 SSID='Y!Office' freq=5805 MHz) Aug 26 09:53:38 flymockour-l7 hirenp: /etc/rc.d/dhclient: WARNING: failed to start dhclient Aug 26 09:53:40 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: Authentication with 6c:f3:7f:67:ac:57 timed out. Aug 26 09:53:40 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=6c:f3:7f:67:ac:57 reason=3 locally_generated=1 Aug 26 09:53:43 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: Trying to associate with 6c:f3:7f:4d:89:37 (SSID='Y!Office' freq=5745 MHz) Aug 26 09:53:53 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: Authentication with 6c:f3:7f:4d:89:37 timed out. Aug 26 09:53:53 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=6c:f3:7f:4d:89:37 reason=3 locally_generated=1 Aug 26 09:53:56 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: Trying to associate with 6c:f3:7f:67:ac:47 (SSID='Y!Office' freq=2462 MHz) Aug 26 09:54:06 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: Authentication with 6c:f3:7f:67:ac:47 timed out. Aug 26 09:54:06 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=6c:f3:7f:67:ac:47 reason=3 locally_generated=1 Aug 26 09:54:09 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: Trying to associate with 6c:f3:7f:4d:89:17 (SSID='Y!Office' freq=5220 MHz) Aug 26 09:54:19 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: Authentication with 6c:f3:7f:4d:89:17 timed out. Aug 26 09:54:19 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=6c:f3:7f:4d:89:17 reason=3 locally_generated=1 Aug 26 09:54:19 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: Trying to associate with 6c:f3:7f:4f:a4:a7 (SSID='Y!Office' freq=2412 MHz) Aug 26 09:54:19 flymockour-l7 wpa_supplicant[43307]: wlan0: Associated with 6c:f3:7f:4f:a4:a7
It's supported by the 3945ABG, but the driver isn't entirely correct. The driver needs to buffer frames until the firmware says "yup, I've heard a beacon" and then retry them. iwn has the same problem with 5ghz. -a
(In reply to Adrian Chadd from comment #2) > It's supported by the 3945ABG, but the driver isn't entirely correct. > > The driver needs to buffer frames until the firmware says "yup, I've heard a > beacon" and then retry them. > > iwn has the same problem with 5ghz. Agree. it should not jump around as being reported in this bug, right? IMO by default, it should try 5GHz first and if that doesn't work, try 2.4 GHz and stick to it till the session life-time. And should not jump back and forth. Please correct me if that's a wrong expectation.
Right; I have no idea why the wpi firmware keeps disassociating.
I do not know if this is related but the associating/disassociating also takes place when you limit the interface to one band. By doing a 'ifconfig wlan0 mode 11g', my wireless only looks for the 2.4 Ghz. It associates correctly, then disconnects, reconnects and so on. This happens about every 2 minutes in my case.
Well, we need to figure out why the firmware is disconnecting in the first place. I'll see if I can find one of these NICs in my collection.