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Date:      Sun, 30 Mar 2008 12:09:06 +0100
From:      "Kemian Dang" <dangkm@gmail.com>
To:        std <std@suddenlink.net>
Cc:        turnerlit@gmail.com, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Help Using NDIS & Broadcom 4321ag 802.11a/b/g/draft-n
Message-ID:  <82f916c90803300409ya533317iba7b60c981f12a9b@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <200803291910.43213.std@suddenlink.net>
References:  <200803291910.43213.std@suddenlink.net>

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I also use a HP laptop, This is the pciconf -lv output of my machine,
    vendor     = 'Broadcom Corporation'
    device     = 'BCM4310 broadcom wireless 1490 (dell)'
    class      = network

The strange thing is it said 1490 dell, so after the fail attempt on
the HP driver, I turn to Dell 1490 driver, this time it works.

Another thing is I can not use ifconfig scan to find the AP neither,
but when I just ifconfig ndis0 ssid xxx, I find the state change to
assocaite, and dhclient obtain the IP.
My ap does not use a authentication method.

Best wishes,
Kemian

On 30/03/2008, std <std@suddenlink.net> wrote:
> Hi:
>
>  I can't seem to find a definitive answer on the net to whether (and how)
>  FreeBSD supports Broadcom 4321ag 802.11a/b/g/draft-n Wi-Fi Adapters.
>  Apparently there's no native support (except through experimental drivers?)
>  so you have to use NDIS (which is like ndswrapper for other linux os's only
>  NDIS is built into the FreeBSD project).  I've tried ndisgen bcml##.inf
>  bcml## for three different driver sets, blcmwl5.sys/inf, bcmwl564.sys/inf,
>  and bcmwl6.sys/inf.  I've got the best results with the oldest drivers,
>  bcmwl5.sys/inf.  kldstat shows ndis, if_ndis, and bcmwl5_sys loaded in the
>  kernel and the system recognizes an ndis0 adapter, but, ifconfig ndis0 up
>  scan just hangs forever.
>
>  My system is a HP tx1320us tablet pc [2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core
>  Mobile Technology TL-60, 2048 MB DDR2 (2 Dimm), Broadcom 4321AG
>  802.11a/b/g/draft-n Wi-Fi Adapter, fingerprint sensor, remote,.touch screen,
>  etc. -
>  http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01161310&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&softwareitem=ob-58904-1&product=3548576&os=2093&rule=8034&lang=en ]
>  running FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE, installed from CDS and
>  ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/packages a couple weeks ago in a dual
>  boot config with windows vista home premium (a good reason for dual booting
>  fbsd :).
>
>  The procedure I followed was to
>
>  (1) identify the NIC;
>
>  (2) download the windows drivers from the manufacturers website.
>
>  I first tried the drivers built for windows vista because those are the
>  drivers built for the 4321 card in my system.
>  These drivers, bcmwl6, contained in hp's
>  ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp38501-39000/sp38764.exe were apparently
>  released March 12, 2008.  After running ndisgen bcmwl6.inf bcmwl6.sys and
>  creating bcmwl6_sys.ko, when I kldload bcmwl6_sys.ko it loads ndis.ko and
>  if_ndis.ko, but dmesg shows about 20 "no match" for various device settings
>  (see below).
>
>  The latest bcmwl6 drivers don't seem to work.  It could be the inf has more
>  than a few extraneous quotation marks which throw off the utf-8 to ascii
>  conversion, but I tried several different methods and suspect it's NDIS
>  itself which lacks the necessary support.
>
>  Is Bill Paul of Project Evil working on this (see
>  http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hardware/2004-January/001005.html)?
>
>  I downloaded the windows XP drivers for my broadcom 4321AG
>  802.11a/b/g/draft-nftp:
>  from //ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp36501-37000/sp36684.exe.  These were released
>  August 15, 2007.
>  cabextract -l sp36684.exe
>         Viewing cabinet: sp36684.exe
>         File size | Date       Time     | Name
>         -----------+---------------------+-------------
>         14310 | 13.08.2007 14:46:28 | bcm43xx.cat
>         14310 | 13.08.2007 14:46:28 | bcm43xx64.cat
>         803496 | 13.08.2007 14:46:30 | bcmwl5.inf
>         822272 | 13.08.2007 14:46:30 | bcmwl5.sys
>         983552 | 13.08.2007 14:46:30 | bcmwl564.sys
>         9028380 | 13.08.2007 14:46:32 | Setup.exe
>         6584 | 14.08.2007 09:36:30 | sp36684.cva
>
>  (3) generate linux kernel modules with ndisgen and load them
>
>  ndisgen bcmwl6.inf bcmwl6.sys (without any additional files)
>  kldstat
>         Id Refs Address    Size     Name
>         1   17 0xc0400000 906518   kernel
>         2    1 0xc0d07000 14324    snd_hda.ko
>         3    2 0xc0d1c000 4a5ac    sound.ko
>         7    1 0xc0fb2000 6a32c    acpi.ko
>         8    1 0xc5c6a000 22000    linux.ko
>  kldload bcmwl6_sys
>  kldstat
>         Id Refs Address    Size     Name
>         1   17 0xc0400000 906518   kernel
>         2    1 0xc0d07000 14324    snd_hda.ko
>         3    2 0xc0d1c000 4a5ac    sound.ko
>         7    1 0xc0fb2000 6a32c    acpi.ko
>         8    1 0xc5c6a000 22000    linux.ko
>         9    1 0xc69ae000 1a2000   bcmwl6_sys.ko
>         10    1 0xc55dd000 c000     if_ndis.ko
>         11    2 0xc6971000 16000    ndis.ko
>  ifconfig | grep ndis0           -- no match
>  tail -f /var/log/dmesg
>         no match for NdisMRegisterInterruptEx
>         no match for NdisMIndicateStatusEx
>         no match for NdisFreeNetBufferList
>         no match for NdisAllocateMdl
>         no match for NdisFreeMdl
>         no match for NdisMDeregisterScatterGatherDma
>         no match for NdisMDeregisterInterruptEx
>         no match for NdisMSynchronizeWithInterruptEx
>         no match for NdisMRegisterMiniportDriver
>         no match for NdisMSetMiniportAttributes
>         no match for NdisMGetBusData
>         no match for NdisMRegisterScatterGatherDma
>         no match for NdisAllocateNetBufferListPool
>         no match for NdisMOidRequestComplete
>         no match for NdisAllocateIoWorkItem
>         no match for NdisMSetBusData
>         no match for NdisAllocateNetBufferAndNetBufferList
>         no match for NdisMDeregisterMiniportDriver
>         no match for NdisFreeNetBufferListPool
>         no match for NdisOpenConfigurationEx
>         no match for NdisFreeIoWorkItem
>         no match for NdisMSendNetBufferListsComplete
>         no match for NdisMIndicateReceiveNetBufferLists
>         no match for NdisAllocateMemoryWithTagPriority
>         no match for NdisQueueIoWorkItem
>         no match for KeBugCheckEx
>         no match for KeTickCount
>         no match for KeQuerySystemTime
>         NDIS dummy called...
>
>  ndisgen bcmwl5.inf bcmwl5.sys (w/o additional files)
>  kldstat
>         Id Refs Address    Size     Name
>         1   17 0xc0400000 906518   kernel
>         2    1 0xc0d07000 14324    snd_hda.ko
>         3    2 0xc0d1c000 4a5ac    sound.ko
>         7    1 0xc0fb2000 6a32c    acpi.ko
>         8    1 0xc5c6a000 22000    linux.ko
>  kldload bcmwl5_sys
>  tail -f /var/log/messages
>         ndis0: <Broadcom 4321AG 802.11a/b/g/draft-n Wi-Fi Adapter> mem
>  0xc8000000-0xc8003fff,0xc9200000-0xc92fffff irq 19 at device 0.0 on pci3
>         ndis0: [ITHREAD]
>         ndis0: NDIS API version: 5.1
>         ndis0: using obsoleted if_watchdog interface
>         ndis0: Ethernet address: 00:1a:73:b7:6e:2d
>  kldstat
>         Id Refs Address    Size     Name
>         1   17 0xc0400000 906518   kernel
>         2    1 0xc0d07000 14324    snd_hda.ko
>         3    2 0xc0d1c000 4a5ac    sound.ko
>         7    1 0xc0fb2000 6a32c    acpi.ko
>         8    1 0xc5c6a000 22000    linux.ko
>         11    1 0xc69ae000 220000   bcmwl5_sys.ko
>         12    1 0xc55dd000 c000     if_ndis.ko
>         13    2 0xc6971000 16000    ndis.ko
>  ifconfig
>  ndis0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
>         ether 00:1a:73:b7:6e:2d
>         media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect
>         status: no carrier
>         ssid "" channel 1 (2412 Mhz 11b)
>         authmode OPEN privacy OFF bmiss 7 scanvalid 60 bintval 0
>  ifconfig ndis0 up scan
>  [SYSTEM HANGS]
>
>  ndisgen bcmwl564.inf bcmwl564.sys       <=== the '64' appears to designate
>  64-bit os and WILL crash on 32 bit os
>  kldload bcmwl564_sys
>  [12 ERROR, SYSTEM REBOOTING IN 15 SECONDS]
>
>  Do I also need to be loading WLAN modules or is it only for natively supported
>  drivers?
>
>  Should I be running ndisgen bcmwl5.inf bcmwl5.sys and selecting additional
>  files from a windows driver package? ndisgen has two menus for adding
>  additional files, which files should be specified on what nidsgen menu?  I'm
>  only including the sys and inf when I do ndisgen and some sources indicate
>  that I might also be specifying other files contained in the driver packages.
>  How do you determine what files are to be included with ndisgen?
>
>  ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp36501-37000/sp36684.exe = xp 2007-08-15
>         Viewing cabinet: sp36684.exe
>         File size | Date       Time     | Name
>         -----------+---------------------+-------------
>         14310 | 13.08.2007 14:46:28 | bcm43xx.cat
>         14310 | 13.08.2007 14:46:28 | bcm43xx64.cat
>         803496 | 13.08.2007 14:46:30 | bcmwl5.inf
>         822272 | 13.08.2007 14:46:30 | bcmwl5.sys
>         983552 | 13.08.2007 14:46:30 | bcmwl564.sys
>         9028380 | 13.08.2007 14:46:32 | Setup.exe
>         6584 | 14.08.2007 09:36:30 | sp36684.cva
>
>  I know I can knock out 64bit and Setup.exe is the windows driver installation
>  program which I don't need, but what about the bcm43xx.cat?  Is that
>  necessary to creat fully working drivers with ndisgen?
>
>  Does ifconfig ndis0 scan hang because there are no available networks?
>
>  Is this message significant, "ndis0: using obsoleted if_watchdog interface"?
>
>  Are there other drivers that I should be using instead?
>
>  Am I using if_config correctly?  Do I need to configure some wifi parameters
>  in a .conf file somewhere before using ifconfig with an ndis# device?  My
>  rc.conf is entirely sysinstall generated at the moment.
>  nebulae# more /boot/loader.conf
>  bcmwl5_sys_load="YES"
>  wlan_wep_load="YES"      <  === should this be here?
>  snd_hda_load="YES"
>
>  What other information can I collect about my pc & install to help me
>  troubleshoot this issue?
>
>  Thanks in advance,
>
> STD
>  wwww.turnerlit.com
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