Netgear Atheros AR5212 PCMCIA IRQ madwifi problem [SOLVED]

[dgooding]

I just bought a Netgear WGTB511T wireless router and pc card combo. The combo consists of a WGT624 wireless router and a WG511T wireless pcmcia card (Atheros AR5212 chipset). I am trying to get an older model laptop off my desk and into my wife's backpack for school. However, I'm having some issues with the card not being recognized. I've searched these (and other) forums looking for answers to this, but haven't found much in the way of solutions. It appears as though my laptop, a Toshiba Satellite 2595XDVD circa 1999, doesn't want to recognize the card. Here's some important information:

from lspci:

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0000:06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Netgear: Unknown device 4b00
        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-
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 0
        Region 0: Memory at 11000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=2 PME-

from dmesg:

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ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.
ath_hal: 0.9.14.9 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413)
wlan: 0.8.4.5 (EXPERIMENTAL)
wlan: mac acl policy registered
ath_rate_amrr: 0.1
ath_rate_onoe: 1.0
ath_pci: 0.9.4.12 (EXPERIMENTAL)
PCI: Enabling device 0000:06:00.0 (0000 -> 0002)
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:06:00.0[A]: no GSI - using IRQ 0
ath%d: request_irq failed

from kernel 2.6 config:

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CONFIG_SYSCTL=y
CONFIG_PCCARD=y
CONFIG_PCMCIA=y
CONFIG_CARDBUS=y
CONFIG_YENTA=y
CONFIG_PCMCIA_PROBE=y
CONFIG_PNP=y
CONFIG_NET=y
CONFIG_NET_RADIO=y
CONFIG_NET_WIRELESS=y
CONFIG_NET_PCMCIA=y
CONFIG_PCMCIA_PCNET=y
CONFIG_CRYPTO=y
CONFIG_CRYPTO_HMAC=y
CONFIG_CRYPTO_MD5=y

from emerge:

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[ebuild   R   ] sys-apps/baselayout-1.11.11-r1  -bootstrap -build -debug -static (-uclibc) 0 kB 
[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/madwifi-driver-0.1_pre20050224  +pcmcia 0 kB 
[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/madwifi-tools-0.1_pre20050106  0 kB 
[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/wireless-tools-27  +nls 0 kB 

from iwconfig:

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lo        no wireless extensions.
dummy0    no wireless extensions.
irda0     no wireless extensions.
eth0      no wireless extensions.

One thing I've noticed is that in the lspci output, on the Interrupt: line, pin A is being routed to IRQ 0 (which probably isn't right). The other noticably wrong thing is that dmesg says ath%d instead of ath0. I'm guessing that's a bug in the code (some malformed printf), but I don't know where/how to check/change that (though that might just be a side effect of the IRQ problem).

I am able to access the internet from this laptop (as evidenced by this post) using a wired PCMCIA card in the other slot. This means that my laptop is able to correctly identify PCMCIA cards and use them. What's the deal??

---

FYI:
I updated to the latest madwifi-driver (released just after I started this whole thing) and the errors are all the same.

From emerge:

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[ebuild   R   ] net-wireless/madwifi-driver-0.1_pre20050420  0 kB

And also FYI, here's the list of modules I'm loading with regard to madwifi:

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ath_hal
wlan
wlan_acl
wlan_ccmp
wlan_tkip
wlan_wep
wlan_xauth
ath_rate_amrr
ath_rate_onoe
ath_pci

[dgooding]

Fixed it... After searching and searching... After upgrading, downgrading, and reinstalling madwifi-driver, pcmcia-cs, and kernels... After joining #madwifi and talking to guys there...

Thank you phantasis!

He suggested I take a look at my BIOS and double check to see if the machine was setting IRQs, not the OS. While I saw that the machine was indeed setting the IRQs, I saw another tab named "PC-Card". In it was an option named "Device Config" with options 1) Auto-Selected 2) PCIC Compatible and 3) CardBus/16-bit. It was set to (1). I tried (3), and VIOLA!! my card is now recognized!!

I found further evidence of my problem here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q245132/

Thank you again phantatis on #madwifi.

[gustafson]

This might be a dumb question, but where do I get the ath_pci and ath_hal modules? I've go the same card, and everybody seems to have those modules in the kernel, but I can't find where to get them.

[UberLord]

emerge madwifi-driver