# Acer Aspire 3680: TI flashcard reader and Broadcom wifi



## Eponasoft (Sep 24, 2009)

These two devices I'm still having a spot of trouble with. The first one is the card reader. I really didn't expect this one to be easy but perhaps someone could shed some light. We have two Acer Aspire 3680s but I'm only concerned with this one for the moment, as the other one runs Windows XP. This is a Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Integrated FlashMedia Controller, according to Windows. I assume that this is the portion of dmesg that is relevant.


```
cbb0: <PCI-CardBus Bridge> mem 0xd0204000-0xd0204fff irq 20 at device 9.0 on pci10
cardbus0: <CardBus bus> on cbb0
pccard0: <16-bit PCCard bus> on cbb0
cbb0: [ITHREAD]
pci10: <mass storage> at device 9.2 (no driver attached)
```

So...is there a driver for this, or is it possible to use the Windows driver here as it is sometimes for other devices?

And then is the wireless device. This was hard enough to get working in Windows (it worked once on mine); on the other Acer, we've never been able to get the wireless working despite trying many drivers (since there are four different possible devices!). FreeBSD identifies this particular one as the Broadcom model. Here's the relevant dmesg output for the bwi driver:


```
bwi0: <Broadcom BCM4311 802.11 Wireless Lan> mem 0xd0100000-0xd0103fff irq 16 at device 0.0 on pci3
bwi0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
bwi0: [ITHREAD]
bwi0: regwin: chipcommon (0x800), rev 17, vendor 0x4243
bwi0: BBP: id 0x4311, rev 0x1, pkg 0
bwi0: nregwin 4, cap 0x0064000d
bwi0: regwin: 802.11 MAC (0x812), rev 10, vendor 0x4243
bwi0: MAC: rev 10
bwi0: regwin: usb 1.1 host (0x817), rev 3, vendor 0x4243
bwi0: regwin: pci express (0x820), rev 1, vendor 0x4243
bwi0: clksrc CS_OSC
bwi0: clkfreq min 990000, max 1010000
bwi0: power on delay 3
bwi0: bus rev 1
bwi0: pci express is enabled
bwi0: card flags 0x4a49
bwi0: 0th led, act 2, lowact 0
bwi0: 1th led, act 5, lowact 0
bwi0: 2th led, act 4, lowact 0
bwi0: 3th led, act 0, lowact 0
bwi0: 802.11 MAC was already disabled
bwi0: PHY is linked
bwi0: PHY: type 2, rev 8, ver 4
bwi0: PHY: 802.11G attach
bwi0: RF: manu 0x17f, type 0x2050, rev 2
bwi0: bus rev 1
bwi0: PHY is linked
bwi0: 32bit bus space
bwi0: max txpower from sprom: 74 dBm
bwi0: invalid antenna gain in sprom
bwi0: ant gain 8 dBm
bwi0: region/domain max txpower 76 dBm
bwi0: max txpower 74 dBm
bwi0: sprom idle tssi: 0xff3e
bwi0: TSSI-TX power map:
85 85 84 84 84 83 83 83
82 82 81 81 80 80 79 79
78 78 77 77 77 76 76 74
74 73 73 72 71 70 70 69
68 67 66 65 64 63 62 61
60 59 57 56 54 53 51 50
48 46 44 42 39 37 35 32
30 26 23 19 15 11 6 1
bwi0: idle tssi0: 62
bwi0: bus rev 1
bwi0: locale: 0
bwi0: WARNING: using obsoleted if_watchdog interface
bwi0: Ethernet address: 00:19:7e:5e:8c:a3
```

According to another thread here on the forum, there are some additional steps to take to get wifi working, which I added as well. However, I still have no idea how to make it work. The device shows up KDE's "Network Tools" dialog but shows as "inactive".


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## richardpl (Sep 24, 2009)

ifconfig(8) is for network setup and not KDE dialogs.


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## Eponasoft (Sep 24, 2009)

I was not trying to set up the network, as everything is already set up. I was just trying to get information. It is just easier for us desktop users to get information from dialogs rather than the console.


```
$ ifconfig
msk0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=11a<TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,TSO4>
        ether 00:1b:24:31:65:50
        inet 10.0.0.66 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.0.255
        media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
        status: active
bwi0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        ether 00:19:7e:5e:8c:a3
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
        status: no carrier
        ssid "" channel 1 (2412 Mhz 11b)
        authmode OPEN privacy OFF bmiss 7 scanvalid 60 bintval 0
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
```


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## paradox (Sep 24, 2009)

should use the wpa_supplicant to connect
and for rev 8 bcm4311 needed some small patch(that not commit to bwi)

but before you do load the firmware (install from the ports)
and changed the state of interface bwi0

```
ifconfig bwi0 up
```


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## Eponasoft (Sep 25, 2009)

Thanks paradox, I sort of understood what you said there.  ifconfig bwi0 up changes its state to active but wpa_supplicant is a little hazy. I'll keep looking around. Thanks! 

EDIT: wpa_supplicant.conf is pretty confusing...I wish it was a bit easier to understand. I guess I'll try again after some sleep, hehe.


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## varnie (May 26, 2010)

good day, *Eponasoft*
any news about your notebook and FreeBSD experience?


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## mav@ (May 27, 2010)

Have you tried sdhci(4) driver for the card reader? These TI chips using two different APIs, while usually using one depending on hardware wiring. One of them should work with sdhci(4), other is unsupported now.


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