# Atheros Stuck beacon issue with FreeBSD 7.2



## matrix200 (Aug 2, 2009)

Hi, I am new to the forum so please forgive me if I break some rules and this is a wrong forum to post.
I am using pfsense 1.2.3RC2 based on FreeBSD 7.2 and have intermittent issues with my Atheros 5212 (Wistron CM9).
There are quite a lot of IN/OUT errors and from time to time I get stuck beacon which usually come in packets (10-20 each time).
Often AP functionality of the pfsense is lost altogether and I have to either reboot or change channel which sometimes restores wifi operation for another day or two.
I use wistron cm9 minipci adapter on ALIX2C2 and the OS is installed on industrial cf card 4 gigabyte.
Earlier I had microdrive and IN/OUT errors amount was much worse but stuck beacon issue is still present.
Some people on pfsense forum recommended to turn to this place.
My main question is what is the status of FreeBSD 7.2 with regards to ath driver compared to new release 8.0?
I was told that all bugs fixing was pretty much abandoned for 7.2 and those will be fixed in 8.0.
Maybe it is hardware issue after all (motherboard has unstable 3.3V rail? Or maybe power supply is not enough (18V , 0.8A).
Except for these wireless issues , I don't have any other problems and OS seems to be rock stable.
Please advise.


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## icer (Aug 10, 2009)

i am using Atheros 5212 in 7.2 and all work fine, now i update my system to 8.0-BETA2 and ath driver was in GENERIC kernel (but i am not test it yet). 
how you add ath driver to system? maybe you forgot something? i add this in /boot/loader.conf:

```
wlan_wep_load="YES"
wlan_tkip_load="YES"
wlan_ccmp_load="YES"
wlan_xauth_load="YES"
wlan_acl_load="YES"
if_ath_load="YES"
```


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## ygorre (Aug 21, 2009)

Hello.

I have had this problem with my server, too (3 Atheros cards, bridged). I managed to solve it by increasing the beacon interval of my cards:


```
ifconfig athX bintval [I]<Interval in ms>[/I]
```

I used as Interval 300ms (default is 100), but I suggest to test some values, as this can decrease network throughput if misconfigured.

That seems like a problem in these chipsets, as I used Linux before and the same problem happened there.

Hope that helps,
Ygor


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## matrix200 (Aug 21, 2009)

Thanks for your replies guys.
icer, this is a pfsense setup so I don't really have that much control over how the module is loaded.
I am pretty sure the module is loaded properly since otherwise AP wouldn't work at all (I guess).

ygorre, thanks for the suggestion.
I just applied that.
Will wait and see whether this helps.


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