[Prism54-users] SMC2835 stopped working, how to troubleshoot?

[Dirk]

On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 10:21:06AM +0100, Karl-Heinz Herrmann wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 20:25:37 +0100
> Dirk <dirk@bigengineer.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> 
> > Hi all. Out of the blue my wlan stopped working. I don't have a clue
> > what the cause can be. Until now it worked without a problem. (almost)
> >[...]
> >
> > How do you troubleshoot such a problem? I only have 1 AP and 1 wlan
> > card. I only use linux on the laptop, so there is no way I can test it
> > with another system or OS. 
> 
> I had one die on me too. worked flawless -- then suddenly it worked
> flawless for 30 seconds and would refuse any further connection. LED
> blimking, frequencies cycling, just no data transfer whatsoever. 
> I realised it was working long if I'm in a cold room and that it was
> rather warm (not hot!) when taking it out. Putting it in the freezer
> first and run the fans full speed on the lap (no CPU eating stuff
> running) gave me 3-5 min before break down. I got a replacement from SMC
> and I've picked up on the grapevine (newsgroups) the SMB2835 might have
> a temp. problem.
> 
> I suggest: try some temperature depending testing (freezer). put it in
> until it stops working, freeze it try again. If it's behaving
> temperature dependent call SMC.
> 
I can't believe it, I put in the fridge for an hour and it works! But it
didn't work right away, I had to reinsert it 1 time. 
> 
Unfortunately I saw another disturbing line in my debug log, something
about memory corruption. Never saw that one before. It is there when the
card doesn't work for the first time, after reinserting the card works
and no memory corruption. ( or did the system forget to mention it? :-)

Feb  4 19:01:08 CB1 kernel: eth1: prism54 driver detected card model: SMC2835W
Feb  4 19:01:25 CB1 kernel: eth1: islpci_open()
Feb  4 19:01:25 CB1 kernel: eth1: resetting device...
Feb  4 19:01:25 CB1 kernel: eth1: uploading firmware...
Feb  4 19:01:25 CB1 kernel: eth1: firmware uploaded done, now triggering reset...
Feb  4 19:02:00 CB1 kernel: eth1: timeout waiting for mgmt response 1000, trigging device
Feb  4 19:02:12 CB1 kernel: mgt_get_request(0x17000010): received data length was bigger ^I^I       than expected (62 > 21). Memory is probably corrupted... <4>eth1: mgmt response not collected
Feb  4 19:03:10 CB1 kernel: eth1: hot unplug detected
Feb  4 19:03:10 CB1 kernel: eth1: removing device
Feb  4 19:03:10 CB1 kernel: eth1: islpci_close ()
Feb  4 19:03:29 CB1 kernel: eth1: prism54 driver detected card model: SMC2835W
Feb  4 19:04:03 CB1 kernel: eth1: islpci_open()
Feb  4 19:04:03 CB1 kernel: eth1: resetting device...
Feb  4 19:04:03 CB1 kernel: eth1: uploading firmware...
Feb  4 19:04:05 CB1 kernel: eth1: firmware uploaded done, now triggering reset...

Dirk