Bug 95584 – ndiswrapper-1.1-r1 causes system freeze

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED TEST-REQUEST

[Description Anatoly Yakovenko 2005-06-09 11:06:20 UTC]

Currently I have a very low and unreliable wireless connection.  So after a
while my connection drops and I need to restart the network card to re-aquire an
ip.  I am not sure if this is all releated, but after about 4 hours or more
using the network my pc freezes, this doesn't occur in version 0.12 of
ndiswrapper with the same card.  I am using vanilla kernel 2.6.11.10.  

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set up a crappy wireless network
2. Restart the interface a bunch of times
3. repeat 4 hours or more

Actual Results:  
system froze

Expected Results:  
not froze

I've had another bug with my card and the 1.x version of ndiswrapper,
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=79995 , so I may just have a faulty card.
 I am not using ndiswrapper anymore since acx100 supports my card without any
problems.  

Anyone have any ideas on how to get some usefull debug information out of a
system freeze?

[Comment 1 Doug Goldstein (RETIRED) 2005-06-10 10:03:16 UTC]

It's an issue with the Windows drivers. You basically have to keep trying
different versions. the newer NDISwrappers use more info from the Windows
drivers, which is now allowing them to allocate more mem.

So lemme get this straight. You're reporting an issue with ndiswrapper, but not
using it?

[Comment 2 Anatoly Yakovenko 2005-06-10 10:12:22 UTC]

I used to use it untill i realized that acx100 supports my card.  A bug is still
a bug :)

[Comment 3 Anatoly Yakovenko 2005-06-14 11:59:00 UTC]

well i got a stronger network now, and i don't see any lockups with ndiswrapper,
which unfortunately i have to use anyways since it seems the acx100 modules do
not work that well at all. I am still interested in figuring out whats causing
the lockup, i can reproduce it pretty easily, any ideas on how i can grab some
usefull information out of it?  after my box locks up i cant ssh into it, or do
anything besides a hard reboot.

[Comment 4 Doug Goldstein (RETIRED) 2005-06-30 15:16:08 UTC]

Upstream might have this fixed. However, always remember the following msg from
upstream...

If you are using 2.6 kernels, make sure 4K stacks are not used i.e., disable
CONFIG_4KSTACKS. On the Webpage of the commercial Linuxant Driverloader I found
the information that even with 8kb (i.e., 4k off) the system may freeze because
some Windows-Drivers in particular for the Intel BG 2200 needs 12kb. On their
Webpage they are offering a 12k patch for the 2.6.7-kernel. Note that Fedora
kernels actually disable this option, so you won't see it in kernel
configuration, so if you are using Fedora kernel, you should either get the
patch from Linuxant or compile a vanilla kernel without 4K stacks.

Either way, test with ndiswrapper 1.2 and report back.