Opened 16 years ago

Last modified 16 years ago

#2 new defect

GenMac doesn't use low memeory

Reported by: guest Owned by: cla
Priority: major Component: Base Driver
Version: 2.20 Keywords:
Cc: Vendor PCI ID: 0x14E4
Device PCI ID: 0x4318 Device Type: wireless
Device Name: Broadcom WiFi B/G WLAN Router (where applicable):

Description

I'm using Ferrari Wl4005 notebook with Broadcom WiFi? (14E4_4318). It worked fine for 2 years. Recently I did hardware upgrade - installed 1 Gb extara memory, so now it has 2Gb total. After that Genmac-Broadcom WiFi? stop working at all. I can boot, if WiFi? was disabled. But when I activate WiFi? and fulfill scan, notebook freezed, so that only Power Off (pressing Power button 4 sec) helps. If WiFi? was activated in previos boot, then OS/2 will be freezed during boot on netbind. If I remove extra 1Gb memory, WiFi? start working fine, like it was before. Booting into Windows with 2Gb doesn't cause any problems with WiFi?. The same Broadcom driver used in Windows as well.

After that I made some examinations, using os2loader from HOBBES.NMSU.EDU setting DEBUGLEVEL to ALL in genmac options.

I found that WiFi? always works fine, when physical memory allocations inside driver limited to 1Gb physical address space. So, even I have 2Gb memory installed, but limit amount of memory visible to OS by appropriate os2ldr setting, WiFi? always works fine.

I found that driver grab 16Mb of physical memory at time and then serve win driver memory allocation requests from this pool. I have information that there was an attempt to fix such issue and LOWMEM genmac option may help somehow (is there any way to get some sort of genmac options description). But I see in driver log, that even when, I activate this option, physical memory address still located above 1Gb address (when 2Gb RAM are visible to OS).

Summary:
It seems that there is some HW design issue, which prevent operations when using physical memory address range above 1Gb. For some reason LOWMEM driver option doesn't function.

Change History (2)

comment:1 Changed 16 years ago by guest

Device PCI ID: 0x00000x4318
Priority: minormajor
Vendor PCI ID: 0x00000x14E4

comment:2 Changed 16 years ago by guest

Device Name: Broadcom WiFi B/G
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