Re: CFT: new ath hal

On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 04:17:59PM -0800, Sam Leffler wrote..
> Wilko Bulte wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 11:28:15AM -0800, Sam Leffler wrote..
> >> I've placed a new hal out for testing.  I'd like to commit it after more
> >> folks work with it so feedback would be helpful.
> >>
> >> http://people.freebsd.org/~sam/ath_hal-20061205.tgz
> >>
> >> There are numerous small bugs fixed in this version but the main change
> >> is a split of the descriptor state so that s/w state can be placed in
> >> cached memory when h/w state is in uncached memory.  This results in
> >> noticeable performance gains on certain architectures.
> >>
> >> To use this hal you must patch the driver and rate control modules with
> >> this:
> >>
> >> http://people.freebsd.org/~sam/ath-20061205.patch
> > 
> > Seems to work fine on my laptop:
> > 
> > ath_hal: 0.9.20.3 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)
> > ath0: <Atheros 5212> mem 0xd0210000-0xd021ffff at device 4.0 on pci2
> > ath0: using obsoleted if_watchdog interface
> > ath0: Ethernet address: 00:80:48:7e:16:96
> > ath0: mac 7.8 phy 4.5 radio 5.6
> > 
> > Anything special you want to have tested?  I use this laptop daily
> > so it will see 'runtime' anyway..
> 
> I mostly care about regressions.  The code base has been stable for a
> while so it's unlikely you'll see any obvious differences.

Well.. I now found an obvious difference.  I tried playing some avi files
from a filesystem mounted via NFS.  With the previous hal etc this
runs streaming video (ok, very seldom there is a small hiccup).  With the
latest hal & patch I cannot get streaming avi play at all.  All of
this is with identical hardware, and keeping the laptop and AP at the same
locations.  Things like scp report the same speeds for both old and new 
hal/driver.

What I found interesting is the beaconing difference.  No idea if this
is related.

Working:

wb_at_chuck ~: athstats 
64678 tx management frames
16 tx frames discarded prior to association
49 tx stopped 'cuz no xmit buffer
3268 tx failed 'cuz bogus xmit rate
14 tx frames with rts enabled
64680 tx frames with an alternate rate
463 tx frames with 11g protection
2644 rx failed 'cuz of FIFO overrun
1 rx failed 'cuz frame too short
64531 rx management frames
2324 beacons transmitted
25 periodic calibration failures
610 rate control raised xmit rate
5 rate control dropped xmit rate
4 switched default/rx antenna
1 tx used alternate antenna
Antenna profile:
[2] tx      145 rx        1
[3] tx    64548 rx    67527

Not working:

wb_at_chuck ~: athstats   
23 interrupts coalesced
7562 tx management frames
16 tx frames discarded prior to association
49 tx stopped 'cuz no xmit buffer
610 tx failed 'cuz bogus xmit rate
14 tx frames with rts enabled
7564 tx frames with an alternate rate
56 tx frames with 11g protection
1585 rx failed 'cuz of FIFO overrun
7515 rx management frames
1822627093 beacons transmitted
24 periodic calibration failures
377 rate control raised xmit rate
2 rate control dropped xmit rate
1 tx used alternate antenna
Antenna profile:
[2] tx       16 rx        0
[3] tx     7561 rx     9385
wb_at_chuck ~: 

-- 
Wilko Bulte				wilko_at_FreeBSD.org