Daily Archives: September 2, 2008

life school

Home stretch of undergrad-ness

September 2, 2008 – 9:37 pm

Well, I just started classes again today. I just have 5 classes left of undergrad! Only 16 credits, so technically I could finish it in one semester. However, I would prefer to stretch it out over 2 semesters. 10 credits this semester and 6 next semester. Both technically are considered “half-time” which is great because then I won’t have to repay my student loans until 6 months after May 15th 2009 or so. Hopefully I can save up some money to have a nestegg by then. Also great because I need to work for 40 hours every week and I think that is impossible for me with a full load of classes.

I’m looking forward to an easy semester of school and a stressful semester of work. boo work but that should be fine enough as well.

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gentoo linux

Intel: iwl3945 madness

September 2, 2008 – 12:37 pm

As jaervosz wrote the other day, the iwl3945 driver has some serious issues with it. I think I have it narrowed down to what conditions cause the problem.

Problem: When downloading large files for non-trivial amounts of time, the download speed drops to <80 K/s. This is unacceptable, the whole pipe is limited to that by the way. I am not sure what exactly causes this but I have narrowed down the conditions to which it happens.

Encryption does not matter.. it falters on wep/wpa{1,2} or open networks. However, I found that this condition only exists on mode B APs. This includes “mixed” APs as well. I do not know enough about drivers but if the AP offers B & G, then it should select G, right? Well, based on the condition of the speeds, I would have to say that it is selecting B mode and then hitting this bug again.

Anyway, for the time being…Do not use B APs. Easier said that done because I’m sure most every sys-admin would select Mixed AP over G only. So, if you are experiencing this issue as well, please comment on the upstream bug, which has been open for 7 months by the way. Annoying. Maybe we can convince them to look at this issue some more? Even intel employees are CC’d on the bug because they have the issue too..

Workaround: Convert your AP to G only or use G only APs.

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