[Prism54-users] Allnet ALL0271 range problems

[Richard Atterer]

Hi Steve,

I'm a fairly happy ALL0271 user...

On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 08:24:53PM +0100, steve at nexusuk.org wrote:
> I've been using a PrismGT card in my laptop for a while (using the
> prism54 drivers) and my desktop has been running an SMC2802Wv2 with the
> ndiswrapper drivers in ad-hoc mode.  I just bought a Allnet ALL0271 card
> from Germany to replace the SMC so I could use the Prism54 drivers on
> both machines, but I've hit a problem:

I had problems in master/managed mode, but using ad-hoc solved them.

> I get a 54Mb connection between the two machines at a range of about a 
> metre, but the signal quickly drops off - by the time I get into the next 
> room (a range of about 4 metres through a single plasterboard wall) I'm 
> getting a large number of dropped packets making the connection completely 
> unusable.  The Allnet card with prism54 drivers also seems to have a habit 
> of hanging my desktop.

:-/ Neither of these problems happens here. I get reliable, good 
connections between my ALL0271 (my machine) and a WG511 PC Card (Linux
router, my old laptop, both prism54), at a distance of about 6m, through
two walls.

The driver was unstable earlier, but has been working fine since 2.6.5 or
so.  Currently, I use the card unter Linux 2.4.26, but 2.6.x also works
fine.

> Am I missing something (I've tried tweaking the tx-power setting but it's
> already set at 31 which appears to be the highest setting), or is this
> card broken?

It definitely works here! The lspci output for my card is below.

The only thing I can think of is that you should check you're using the
correct firmware with your card - best use the one that the Windows driver
installs. For me, version 1.0.4.3 works, I had all kinds of weird problems
and a half-working card with some other versions.

Sometimes it also helps to play around with the channel setting, or the
orientation of the antenna.  Or you could try sacrificing a black goat over
the card, but note that this will only work at full moon.

Cheers,

  Richard

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0000:00:0f.0 Class 0280: 1260:3890 (rev 01)
        Subsystem: 16a5:1605
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV+ VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 80 (2500ns min, 7000ns max), Cache Line Size: 0x08 (32 bytes)
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 18
        Region 0: Memory at d9800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold+)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-