CTX714 to a good home
Hi,
I recently bought a Creatix CTX714 in the hopes of using it in a Thinkpad
T23. After much experimentation I've been unable to get it working, and am giving up. I bought it for $8 on eBay, but the shipping (from Hong Kong to Los Angeles) was over $20 so it's not worthwhile for me to return it for a refund. I'd like to send it to any interested developer to wrestle with and see if they can get it working. lspci identifies it as 1260:3390, and the p54pci driver talks to it, but I was never able to see any APs with it.
More background: the T23 had a 56K modem in the mini-PCI slot. I wanted to find a combo wifi/modem card with 802.11g and V.90, and the CTX714 appeared to be the only candidate, so when I saw one on eBay, I jumped on it.
The card came with a mini-CDROM with a Windows driver. The driver included a fullmac firmware, 1.0.1.0. The Creatix docs say that this card uses the same chipset/driver as their CTX405 card. Their docs also said that the CTX405 would only work using ndiswrapper on Linux. (There are barely any CTX714 docs.)
I've already gone thru all the motions of trying the 1.0.1.0 and 1.0.4.3 firmware with the original prism54 driver, as well as just trying the default softmac firmware for the p54pci driver, and ndiswrapper with the Windows driver. (On Ubuntu Jaunty, 2.6.28.x kernel.) I've had absolutely no luck. The drivers see the device, register an interface, and they show the correct MAC address for the card, but I never see any other stations. In fact the card didn't work under Windows either, so possibly there's a problem with the card itself, but I don't know how to diagnose this any further. And possibly it just won't work in any Thinkpad. The eBay ad said it would only work in two models of Medion laptop. I could give it a try in my Asus laptop, but I don't want to spend any more time on it; I've bought a Thinkpad T42 (which comes with a wifi card) to replace the T23 and will be selling the T23. If you want this CTX714 and are willing to try to make it work, email me. I'll send it to the first responder.
Signature · 4 lines
-- Howard Chu CTO, Symas Corp. http://www.symas.com Director, Highland Sun http://highlandsun.com/hyc/ Chief Architect, OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/project/
orinoco_cs and WPA-EAP?
Sigh, nothing's ever easy. After abandoning the CTX714 I mentioned in an earlier email, I find that the Thinkpad T42 I got from eBay came with some kind of Orinoco 802.11B mini-PCI card installed. Ubuntu Jaunty's 2.6.28 kernel loads up the orinoco_cs driver for this card. It appears that this driver only supports WPA-PSK, and I use WPA-EAP on my home wlan. Has anyone done any work on supporting WPA-EAP for this card?
As an exercise in futility, I also built a wlags49-h1-cs driver and wpa_supplicant-0.6.9 with Hermes driver support. After patching it all to compile and run on my 2.6.28 kernel, I found that it also only supports WPA-PSK. I'm going to guess that this was obviously a waste of time and these patches aren't interesting/useful going forward, since the original Lucent code is so ancient...
Signature · 4 lines
-- Howard Chu CTO, Symas Corp. http://www.symas.com Director, Highland Sun http://highlandsun.com/hyc/ Chief Architect, OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/project/
Re: orinoco_cs and WPA-EAP?
Quoted 6 lines · Howard Chu
Sigh, nothing's ever easy. After abandoning the CTX714 I mentioned in an earlier email, I find that the Thinkpad T42 I got from eBay came with some kind of Orinoco 802.11B mini-PCI card installed. Ubuntu Jaunty's 2.6.28 kernel loads up the
orinoco_csdriver for this card. It appears that this driver only supports WPA-PSK, and I use WPA-EAP on my home wlan. Has anyone done any work on supporting WPA-EAP for this card?
Michael Stokes, who is primarily responsible for debugging my initial WPA efforts, reported getting WPA-EAP working with a Toshiba Wireless WLAN v01.01 shortly after we got WPA-PSK working. However I haven't had
independent confirmation of this.
The driver has evolved since then, so it's possible that we've broken something.
Note that the card only supports TKIP, so it won't work if the AP doesn't offer it. At that time there seemed to be an issue with wpa_supplicant attempting to use CCMP when offered by the AP, despite it also offering TKIP - the workaround being to explicitly specify TKIP in wpa_supplicant.conf.
Regards,
Dave.
PS. My contact with Michael has only been in private mail, so I've bcc'd him (rather than cc'ing in case he want to keep his email off public lists) in the hope that he can supply you with the necessary hints to get it working.
Re: orinoco_cs and WPA-EAP?
Quoted 13 lines · Dave
Quoted 6 lines · Howard Chu
Sigh, nothing's ever easy. After abandoning the CTX714 I mentioned in an earlier email, I find that the Thinkpad T42 I got from eBay came with some kind of Orinoco 802.11B mini-PCI card installed. Ubuntu Jaunty's 2.6.28 kernel loads up the
orinoco_csdriver for this card. It appears that this driver only supports WPA-PSK, and I use WPA-EAP on my home wlan. Has anyone done any work on supporting WPA-EAP for this card?Michael Stokes, who is primarily responsible for debugging my initial WPA efforts, reported getting WPA-EAP working with a Toshiba Wireless WLAN v01.01 shortly after we got WPA-PSK working. However I haven't had
independent confirmation of this.
Quoted 8 lines
The driver has evolved since then, so it's possible that we've broken something.
Note that the card only supports TKIP, so it won't work if the AP doesn't offer it. At that time there seemed to be an issue with
wpa_supplicantattempting to use CCMP when offered by the AP, despite it also offering TKIP - the workaround being to explicitly specify TKIP in wpa_supplicant.conf.
Thanks, that may have been the issue I was facing at first. My AP was configured for CCMP. I've now set it to TKIP and seem to be getting further. But now when I start wpa_supplicant I see a stream of "Information frame lost" messages in dmesg that pretty much never end (interspersed once in a while with ratelimit messages). I wonder if this laptop's mini-PCI slot is hosed or something. Also, one of the 2 antenna cable's connector came off, and I've tried to crimp the cable back into the connector but it may not be making full contact. The joys of buying used hardware...
Quoted 9 lines
Regards,
Dave.
PS. My contact with Michael has only been in private mail, so I've bcc'd him (rather than cc'ing in case he want to keep his email off public lists) in the hope that he can supply you with the necessary hints to get it working.
Signature · 4 lines
-- Howard Chu CTO, Symas Corp. http://www.symas.com Director, Highland Sun http://highlandsun.com/hyc/ Chief Architect, OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/project/
Re: orinoco_cs and WPA-EAP?
Quoted 12 lines · Howard Chu
Quoted 10 lines · Dave
Quoted 6 lines · Howard Chu
Sigh, nothing's ever easy. After abandoning the CTX714 I mentioned in an earlier email, I find that the Thinkpad T42 I got from eBay came with some kind of Orinoco 802.11B mini-PCI card installed. Ubuntu Jaunty's 2.6.28 kernel loads up the
orinoco_csdriver for this card. It appears that this driver only supports WPA-PSK, and I use WPA-EAP on my home wlan. Has anyone done any work on supporting WPA-EAP for this card?Note that the card only supports TKIP, so it won't work if the AP doesn't offer it.
Quoted 6 lines
Thanks, that may have been the issue I was facing at first. My AP was configured for CCMP. I've now set it to TKIP and seem to be getting further. But now when I start
wpa_supplicantI see a stream of "Information frame lost" messages in dmesg that pretty much never end (interspersed once in a while with ratelimit messages). I wonder if this laptop's mini-PCI slot is hosed or something.
That message is printed in response to a firmware interrupt. It indicates "an unsolicited Frame Structure cannot be generated... because there is not enough Frame Structure buffer space available".
I suspect that the beacons/probe responses/scan results are either too large/too frequent for the card to handle, or the firmware can't decipher them.
Before enabling wpa_supplicant, can you try scan for your AP (as root):
iwlist ethX scan essid YYYYY
I'm interested in what it returns, and whether dmesg reports 'Ext scan results too large' or something similar.
Dave.
Re: orinoco_cs and WPA-EAP?
Quoted 28 lines · Dave
Quoted 12 lines · Howard Chu
Quoted 10 lines · Dave
Quoted 6 lines · Howard Chu
Sigh, nothing's ever easy. After abandoning the CTX714 I mentioned in an earlier email, I find that the Thinkpad T42 I got from eBay came with some kind of Orinoco 802.11B mini-PCI card installed. Ubuntu Jaunty's 2.6.28 kernel loads up the
orinoco_csdriver for this card. It appears that this driver only supports WPA-PSK, and I use WPA-EAP on my home wlan. Has anyone done any work on supporting WPA-EAP for this card?Note that the card only supports TKIP, so it won't work if the AP doesn't offer it.
Quoted 6 lines
Thanks, that may have been the issue I was facing at first. My AP was configured for CCMP. I've now set it to TKIP and seem to be getting further. But now when I start
wpa_supplicantI see a stream of "Information frame lost" messages in dmesg that pretty much never end (interspersed once in a while with ratelimit messages). I wonder if this laptop's mini-PCI slot is hosed or something.That message is printed in response to a firmware interrupt. It indicates "an unsolicited Frame Structure cannot be generated... because there is not enough Frame Structure buffer space available".
I suspect that the beacons/probe responses/scan results are either too large/too frequent for the card to handle, or the firmware can't decipher them.
Quoted 6 lines
Before enabling
wpa_supplicant, can you try scan for your AP (as root):iwlist ethX scan essid YYYYY
I'm interested in what it returns, and whether dmesg reports 'Ext scan results too large' or something similar.
Yeah a lot of APs will stuff a ton of info into the IEs these days, including WPS, WPA, 11d, blah blah. It's not out of the question that the firmware writers didn't anticipate or handle large numbers of IEs in the beacons. That said, what firmware version is he using? Maybe Apple's firmware fixes that or something? Would be interesting if the reporter could boot up an old iBook with an Airport card and see if that works.
Dan
Re: orinoco_cs and WPA-EAP?
Quoted 5 lines · Dan Williams
Quoted 4 lines · Dave
That message is printed in response to a firmware interrupt. It indicates "an unsolicited Frame Structure cannot be generated... because there is not enough Frame Structure buffer space available".
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 7 lines
I suspect that the beacons/probe responses/scan results are either too large/too frequent for the card to handle, or the firmware can't decipher them.
Before enabling
wpa_supplicant, can you try scan for your AP (as root):iwlist ethX scan essid YYYYY
That works fine. In fact, just "iwlist scan" returns the same result - only the info for my AP is returned. (There are at least 6 APs visible from an another laptop sitting nearby.)
Quoted 2 lines
Quoted 2 lines
I'm interested in what it returns, and whether dmesg reports 'Ext scan results too large' or something similar.
No, it just continues with the stream of "frame lost" messages:
eth2: Information frame lost. (10 times, followed by 1__ratelimit: 2 callbacks suppressed (then 10 more frame lost messages, and so on)
The number in "callbacks suppressed" varies pretty widely, from 2 to 32.
Quoted 4 lines
Yeah a lot of APs will stuff a ton of info into the IEs these days, including WPS, WPA, 11d, blah blah. It's not out of the question that the firmware writers didn't anticipate or handle large numbers of IEs in the beacons. That said, what firmware version is he using? Maybe
Using 9.48, I so far haven't found 9.52 for download anywhere.
Quoted 3 lines
Apple's firmware fixes that or something? Would be interesting if the reporter could boot up an old iBook with an Airport card and see if that works.
Signature · 4 lines
-- Howard Chu CTO, Symas Corp. http://www.symas.com Director, Highland Sun http://highlandsun.com/hyc/ Chief Architect, OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/project/
Re: orinoco_cs and WPA-EAP?
Quoted 26 lines · Howard Chu
Quoted 5 lines · Dan Williams
Quoted 4 lines · Dave
That message is printed in response to a firmware interrupt. It indicates "an unsolicited Frame Structure cannot be generated... because there is not enough Frame Structure buffer space available".
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 7 lines
I suspect that the beacons/probe responses/scan results are either too large/too frequent for the card to handle, or the firmware can't decipher them.
Before enabling
wpa_supplicant, can you try scan for your AP (as root):iwlist ethX scan essid YYYYY
That works fine. In fact, just "iwlist scan" returns the same result - only the info for my AP is returned. (There are at least 6 APs visible from an another laptop sitting nearby.)
Quoted 2 lines
Quoted 2 lines
I'm interested in what it returns, and whether dmesg reports 'Ext scan results too large' or something similar.
No, it just continues with the stream of "frame lost" messages:
eth2: Information frame lost. (10 times, followed by 1
__ratelimit: 2 callbacks suppressed (then 10 more frame lost messages, and so on)
Quoted 8 lines
The number in "callbacks suppressed" varies pretty widely, from 2 to 32.
Quoted 4 lines
Yeah a lot of APs will stuff a ton of info into the IEs these days, including WPS, WPA, 11d, blah blah. It's not out of the question that the firmware writers didn't anticipate or handle large numbers of IEs in the beacons. That said, what firmware version is he using? Maybe
Using 9.48, I so far haven't found 9.52 for download anywhere.
9.52 AFAIK is only available from Apple Airport drivers if you cut it out of the .kext on a PPC Mac.
Dan
Re: orinoco_cs and WPA-EAP?
In reply to Howard ChuQuoted 9 lines · Howard Chu
Quoted 4 lines · Dan Williams
Quoted 3 lines · Dave
Before enabling
wpa_supplicant, can you try scan for your AP (as root):iwlist ethX scan essid YYYYY
That works fine. In fact, just "iwlist scan" returns the same result - only the info for my AP is returned. (There are at least 6 APs visible from an another laptop sitting nearby.)
The fact we can parse the scan result from your AP is good. It indicates the AP doesn't transmit a large list of IEs which trip the card up. The fact we can't see the other APs... I'll assume that's your dodgy antenna :)
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 2 lines
Quoted 2 lines
I'm interested in what it returns, and whether dmesg reports 'Ext scan results too large' or something similar.
No, it just continues with the stream of "frame lost" messages:
eth2: Information frame lost. (10 times, followed by 1
__ratelimit: 2 callbacks suppressed (then 10 more frame lost messages, and so on)
I had thought you didn't get the frame lost messages until you tried to authenticate. If you always receive them, then it might just be due to an AP you're not interested in (and you might be able to ignore these warnings).
A few questions:
1. How far is wpa_supplicant getting in authentication? Use -dd
2. If it authenticates, did you check whether you could dhcp on eth2?
It would also be nice to identify the source of your frame lost messages. Any chance you could have a look at the wireless traffic with another card in monitor mode?
Regards,
Dave.