wi0 Intersil Firmware detection on DLINK wireless PCCARD

From: lbecker (Becker_[NOSPAM)
Date: 01/19/04 

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 17:11:39 GMT

I am trying to troubleshoot an issue with my wi0 controlled wireless PCCARD.

It is a D-LINK DWL-650 in a DLINK PCCARD to PCI adapter. It was working fine
under 4.8 and started to have timeout/locking-up issues once I upgraded to 4.9.

Seaching the newgroup and the FreeBSD.org mailing lists I see that others have
had this problem ( I posted earlier on this too -> http://tinyurl.com/3b86s )

there seems to be an open issue for this card
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=kern/39928

I saw another, more recent, open issue:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=kern/53927

that seems to indicate this happens for all Intersil PRISM 2.5 cards ?? is that
true?

In that message, the "fix" is listed as upgrading the firmware on the card from
"wi0: Intersil Firmware: Primary (1.0.5), Station (1.3.4)"
to
"wi0: Intersil Firmware: Primary (1.1.0), Station (1.4.9)"

I am having trouble figuring out how to get the firmware version on FreeBSD.

When I put the PCCARD into my laptop running Windows XP and select Properties
and then Configure to see the driver and firmware information (on the About tab)
is say the "NIC Firmware is 1.05.06.00".

When I put the card into my FreeBSD box dmesg reports:

wi0 at port 0x240-0x27f irq 5 slot 0 on pccard0
wi0: 802.11 address: 00:40:05:df:30:e6
wi0: using RF:PRISM2 MAC:HFA3841 CARD:HWB3163-SST-flash
wi0: Intersil Firmware: Primary 0.03.00, Station 1.03.04

This number does not match what Windows XP reports.

Has anyone seen this before? Which number above, the "Primary" or the "Station"
is supposed to be the card's firmware version? Is there a command other than
dmesg to dump the cards firmware version? Do I need to use Windows to upgrade
the firmware, or is there a way to do it under FreeBSD?

I wonder if I should just switch to a different card.. they are cheap enough,
but I am concerned that I may have the same problem with an Intersil PRISM based
card or any wi0 driver controlled card.

Does anyone have a known good PCI based wireless setup working with FreeBSD 4.9
(Stable) that uses an easy to locate (i.e. on the shelf at CompUSA, etc) PCI
wireless card? I am using 802.11b, but I guess the .g cards have come down in
price recently.

thanks in advance for any information

- Lynn B.