AWUS036NH TX Power

[Scamentology]

Compat wireless is not required for you to change the CRDA. It was the way I did my original test and I wrote it up that way.

[hannah]

Hi Hannah,

The first point is that the Tx-Power = 0 "bug" is largely cosmetic, transmit power is not zero in reality, the "bug" just reports it as zero because it does not know the true value. The threads you point to make the case that for certain wifi radio devices it is impossible for the device driver to know what the real power setting is because the device does not specify the calibrated value. Power can be varied in some cases, but that does not change the fact that the PC does not know what the radio power setting is. This problem is independent of operating system, the bug is a feature of certain wifi radios that use the ralink chipset.

Many thanks for this explanation. I am having some stability issues with that standard driver that comes with BT5 R2. Will try this compat-wireless driver and see if things improve. Will report back if I succeed.

[dmcdonnell]

Many thanks for this explanation. I am having some stability issues with that standard driver that comes with BT5 R2. Will try this compat-wireless driver and see if things improve. Will report back if I succeed.

Good idea but I note that the latest 'bleeding edge' version of compat-wireless, (available here: http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/) predates the RT2x00usb.c patch (see https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/1155651/). You can, of course, apply the patch yourself. I look forward to hearing how you get on.

[hannah]

Good idea but I note that the latest 'bleeding edge' version of compat-wireless, (available here: http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/) predates the RT2x00usb.c patch (see https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/1155651/). You can, of course, apply the patch yourself. I look forward to hearing how you get on.

Ok this bit I do not understand...

This is my Linux Build..

root@bt:~# uname -a
Linux bt 3.2.6 #1 SMP Fri Feb 17 10:34:20 EST 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux

So why would I go for 'bleeding edge' version of compat-wireless-2.6?( I am guessing 2.6 stands for the kernel version).

I have now applied this version:

http://www.orbit-lab.org/kernel/comp...-rc5-1.tar.bz2

When you are talking about the bleeding edge version I suppose you are talking about this one:
http://linuxwireless.org/download/co...-07-03.tar.bz2

What's the difference? I am confused at the moment..


Report: With compat-wireless-3.5-rc5-1.tar.bz2 it's very unstable at least in my machine.

[dmcdonnell]

Hi Hannah, you need to read the Linux Wireless site for their explanation of the distinction between "stable" and "bleeding edge" compat-wireless versions, (http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Download/) and how to decide which version to apply to your setup.

In short, patches (code fixes) get into "bleeding edge" first and your Ralink 3070 wifi radio will need the RT2x00usb.c patch described in post #14 of this thread. However, as the patch was published only a few days ago, even the "bleeding edge" compat-wireless available for download does not contain that patch, see the date stamps on the compat-wireless archive, (http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/). You will have to wait until a newer "bleeding edge" compat-wireless containing that patch appears or apply the patch yourself.

Support for the Ralink 3070 chipset is a work in progress with regular bug fixes and code improvements. You can see this from the compat-wireless change logs on that site. As BT5r2 is based on Ubuntu, I use a current Ubuntu setup (12.04) with a very recent Ubuntu kernel and "bleeding edge" compat-wireless to keep up to date with the latest code. This means installing a new kernel and applying the latest compat-wireless every month or so. That is the price I pay for using a wifi radio that is not yet well supported. The alternative is to acquire a wifi radio that is very well supported in BT5r2. These are relatively cheap and problem free.

[dmcdonnell]

I saw this morning that a code patch will be added soon to compat-wireless that will address the Tx-Power issue, see http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/piper...ly/005083.html

[hannah]

In short, patches (code fixes) get into "bleeding edge" first and your Ralink 3070 wifi radio will need the RT2x00usb.c patch described in post #14 of this thread. However, as the patch was published only a few days ago, even the "bleeding edge" compat-wireless available for download does not contain that patch, see the date stamps on the compat-wireless archive, (http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/). You will have to wait until a newer "bleeding edge" compat-wireless containing that patch appears or apply the patch yourself. that is very well supported in BT5r2. These are relatively cheap and problem free.

Many thanks and now I have read and applied the compat-wireless-2012-07-03. Please see below my workflow:

Prepare Linux Headers for my machine:

root@bt:/usr/src/linux# cp -rf include/generated/* include/linux/
root@bt:/usr/src/linux# ln -s /usr/src/linux /lib/modules/3.2.6/build
root@bt:/usr/src/linux# apt-get install linux-headers
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
linux-headers is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 23 not upgraded.
root@bt:/usr/src/linux# ln -s //src/linux-headers-3.2.6/Module.symvers  /usr/src/linux-source-3.2.6/Module.symverslinux-headers-3.2.6

Now installing compat-wireless-2012-07-03. I have downloaded it from here:
http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/
The download link:
http://linuxwireless.org/download/co...-07-03.tar.bz2

Untar and then cd to the directory and run the following commands:

root@bt:~/Download/compat-wireless-2012-07-03# make
root@bt:~/Download/compat-wireless-2012-07-03# make install
root@bt:~/Download/compat-wireless-2012-07-03# make unload
root@bt:~/Download/compat-wireless-2012-07-03# make wlunload
root@bt:~/Download/compat-wireless-2012-07-03# make btunload

Full output of these commands are here:
http://pastebin.com/sid8S6NK

root@bt:~/scripts# iwconfig wlan1
wlan1     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"vegemite"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: 37:82:30:E1:C2:1F   
          Bit Rate=90 Mb/s   Tx-Power=0 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=70/70  Signal level=-25 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:80   Missed beacon:0

Ok my card is working mostly.. but as you can see that I did not apply the RT2x00usb.c patch.

Can you please advice where to get this patch and how to apply?

Regards

[dmcdonnell]

Can you please advice where to get this patch and how to apply?

Regards

Very well done. You can get the patch here: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/1155651/

The patch simply changes the order of two variables in a function in the file rt2x00usb.c which you will find in ~/Download/compat-wireless-2012-07-03/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00

Edit the file rt2x00usb.c, change the order of line numbers 439 and 440. It should look like this:

case QID_RX:

if (!rt2x00queue_full(queue))

rt2x00queue_for_each_entry(queue,
Q_INDEX,
Q_INDEX_DONE,
NULL,
rt2x00usb_kick_rx_entry);

break;

Save the file. You need to build compat-wireless again. Begin with 'make clean'.

This patch will NOT fix the cosmetic Tx-Power bug. A proposed patch was published on Monday to address that issue but it has not been posted yet as the fix has not been confirmed. See http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/piper...ly/005083.html

That proposed patch makes a code change to the file reg.c in ~/Download/compat-wireless-2012-07-03/net/wireless. You may wish to see if it "fixes" your Tx-Power = 0. The patched reg.c is here: http://pastebin.com/EAdhXJbd
As you can see from your own experience, although Tx-Power is reported to be zero, it is clearly making an excellent connection to your wireless AP. Can you try to connect to more distant APs?

[dmcdonnell]

The Tx-Power patch is now official, see http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/piper...ly/005126.html

[hannah]

Very well done. You can get the patch here: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/1155651/

First of all apologies for late response. I had been mad busy. Anyway thanks heaps for step by step instruction.
I have followed your instruction and it works. I have applied the patch as well as edit rt2x00usb.c

I do have the Tx-Power showing strength

wlan1     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=30 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on

Many thanks for such a complete instruction. I am sure this will help others.

In addition to your patch I also have run patch from aircrack-ng site:
http://www.aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?...25cf52962dae08

$ wget http://patches.aircrack-ng.org/mac80211.compat08082009.wl_frag+ack_v1.patch
$ patch -p1 < mac80211.compat08082009.wl_frag+ack_v1.patch

Issues: I do get random disconnection from the AP. Do you have similar issue?

Many thanks once again.