Asus WL-500a ??? Yes!

[bramfm]

As a coincidence I obtained a mini PCI 802.11a/b/g wireless adapter based on a Broadcom chipset. The WL-600 (if the thingy is available anywhere) has support for the Atheros (shit), but no explicit support for the Broadcom BCM4309. I replaced the 802.11b/g adapter with the 802.11a/b/g adaptor. The Wl500g booted normally, however it stayed on the same (11b/g) channel. I issued the following commands:


wl down //disable wifi
wl band a //switch to band a
wl txpwr 50
wl up
wl csa master now 52 //switch to channel 52
wl antdiv 3 //enable antenna RX diversity
wl txant 3


The following picture shows the WL500g wth the 802.11a card:

[bramfm]

I did some measurements with the output power of this 11a card. Please see the following picture:




At point one I switched from 50mW to 20mW. At point 2 I switched from 20mW to 84mW and finally at point 3 back to 20mW.
At the time I was downloading a huge file.
Although the output power is increased, the type of frames are max 36Mb types. When 20mW is used almost only 54Mb frames are transmitted. Conclusion the output power should not be set to max as default, only when a bigger range is needed. As a side effect your link will be slower (also for devices that reside closer to the AP)

[Oleg]

You've done a great work in researching.
Is it possible to use 11bg and 11a at the same time?

[bramfm]

You've done a great work in researching.
Is it possible to use 11bg and 11a at the same time?

No, You need two radios (read: two miniPCI cards). Since the WL500g only has one Mini PCI slot (unlike e.g. the D-link DI-774 wich has two) it became a 802.11a only box.

BTW I will use one of the DI-774 MiniPCI cards for the WL500g as well, since these cards are based on an Atheros chipset. The WL500g has native support for this chipset (although the driver is not included, only the control files are). It is a good exersise to port the madwifi driver to the Mips platform, although our goal is to port it eventually to our ARM 9 platform.

[Technik]

It is a good exersise to port the madwifi driver to the Mips platform, although our goal is to port it eventually to our ARM 9 platform.

Well, I have started the Madwifi driver implementation to WL-500 as well. The latest Madwifi version is currently available through CVS only.
The bad thing is that task seems to be too hard for me at the moment... I was not able to compile the module yet - too many errors. I have to tune up my environment for cross-compiling.

[buhzi]

No, You need two radios (read: two miniPCI cards). Since the WL500g only has one Mini PCI slot (unlike e.g. the D-link DI-774 wich has two) it became a 802.11a only box.

BTW I will use one of the DI-774 MiniPCI cards for the WL500g as well, since these cards are based on an Atheros chipset. The WL500g has native support for this chipset (although the driver is not included, only the control files are). It is a good exersise to port the madwifi driver to the Mips platform, although our goal is to port it eventually to our ARM 9 platform.

hello bramfm. can you give some more information about the DI-774? Or can you even take some puctrures from the inside? I need to know if the DI-774 has 2 mini-PCI slots on the bord. Which OS is running on it and what type of cpu.

Thanks for that

buhzi

[bramfm]

hello bramfm. can you give some more information about the DI-774?
Or can you even take some puctrures from the inside? I need to know if the DI-774
has 2 mini-PCI slots on the bord. Which OS is running on it and what type of cpu.

Just click here for a inside picture of the DI-774.



I do not know yet what kind of CPU is used, I thought it was an ARM based CPU.
Also I do not know what OS is used.
I still have to solder the debug UART on this board, but I did not have time for it yet.

[buhzi]

Just click here for a inside picture of the DI-774.

I do not know yet what kind of CPU is used, I thought it was an ARM based CPU. Also I do not know what OS is used. I still have to solder the debug UART on this board, but I did not have time for it yet.

Can you take a more detailed picture from the upper left of your last picture. There ist the CPU located. With the label on it i can google for the CPU type...

And by the way you wrote that you want to port the Madwifi driver to your ARM9 platform. Can you tell me more about this platform?

I'm looking for a board based on ARM9, MIPS or IPX425 with 2 and the same board with 4 miniPCI slots. Therefore the DL774 is very interesting for me.