Listmates, On my older Toshiba P35A (i586) laptop with Atheros AR5212/AR5213, I switched from using the madwifi ath_pci.ko to drive to wireless card and just went to the kernel supplied ath5k.ko module. It just simplifies things to eliminate the madwifi package and use the built in ath5k module since it is now mature enough to work well (most every time except in this unique situation). Being kernel supplied, there is no setup, just boot and the ath5k module is loaded and you have wifi. (well, there was the 30 sec setup in yast -> network settings to configure the interface. The laptop in question sits on the hearth and doesn't move. (literally, it just sits there). Signal strength is fine, 42-50%. ifconfig and iwconfig show the following: wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:F5:15:2D:83 inet addr:192.168.6.101 Bcast:192.168.6.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::211:f5ff:fe15:2d83/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:63850 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:64448 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:28467740 (27.1 Mb) TX bytes:56097494 (53.4 Mb) wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"skyline" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: 00:23:69:5C:FD:B6 Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=27 dBm Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B Encryption key:remembered to snip the key this time [2] Link Quality=51/100 Signal level=-63 dBm Noise level=-96 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 The problem I have is that wlan0 just drops the connection when it is left idling. I have never heard or experienced this before. I've left this box running for weeks with the madwifi driver and never a drop. With ath5k, it's almost like every hour of inactivity causes the ath5k connection to 'go to sleep' for lack of better words. Another strange deal is that sometimes it just reconnects all by itself, others, a simple rcnetwork restart cures the problem. If I leave a ssh connection attached to the box, it never goes to sleep. When the dropout occurs, the log looks like this: [00:19 zephyr/home/david] # cat bugs/ath5k-snip.txt May 21 16:03:26 zephyr dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on wlan0 to 192.168.6.17 port 67 May 21 19:04:10 zephyr dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on wlan0 to 192.168.6.17 port 67 May 21 21:20:28 zephyr kernel: wlan0: No ProbeResp from current AP 00:23:69:5c:fd:b6 - assume out of range May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: Initial auth_alg=0 May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:23:69:5c:fd:b6 May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: RX authentication from 00:23:69:5c:fd:b6 (alg=0 transaction=2 status=0) May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: authenticated May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: associate with AP 00:23:69:5c:fd:b6 May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: RX ReassocResp from 00:23:69:5c:fd:b6 (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=1) May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: associated May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: Initial auth_alg=0 May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:23:69:5c:fd:b6 May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: RX authentication from 00:23:69:5c:fd:b6 (alg=0 transaction=2 status=0) May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: authenticated May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: associate with AP 00:23:69:5c:fd:b6 May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: RX ReassocResp from 00:23:69:5c:fd:b6 (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=1) May 21 21:20:35 zephyr kernel: wlan0: associated I can see it guesses that the box moved out of range, but that's just wrong. The laptop just sits on the hearth and no lead walls have been erected between it an the AP. I never say this with madwifi. Anybody got any ideas other than going back to madwifi? -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org