Bug 14611

Summary:	ath5k spams "noise floor calibration timeout" messages
Product:	Networking	Reporter:	Nicos Gollan (gtdev)
Component:	Wireless	Assignee:	networking_wireless (networking_wireless)
Status:	CLOSED INSUFFICIENT_DATA
Severity:	normal	CC:	bugzilla.kernel.org, finn, fredbezies, harviecz, linville, me
Priority:	P1
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Kernel Version:		Subsystem:
Regression:	No	Bisected commit-id:
Attachments:	temporary work-around

Description Nicos Gollan 2009-11-16 11:15:57 UTC

This is a bit of an annoyance that does not seem to hurt functionality. In short, ath5k tends to spam syslog with lines like:

ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration timeout (2437MHz)

every few seconds. This has been reported in some other places:

http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0902.1/00050.html
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=452491

Some maillist messages from wireless developers that I cannot find right now talk about that being a harmless message that's just highly annoying. On most systems that I'm seeing this on, it does not seem to cause any issues. On one system I'm seeing regular freezes, but I'm inclined to blame them on something else.

Anyway, I would love to see a resolution to that message, be it just by disabling the message, or by fixing its cause.

lspci -v output:
05:04.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR2413 802.11bg NIC (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Atheros Communications Inc. Compex Wireless 802.11 b/g  MiniPCI Adapter, Rev A1 [WLM54G]
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 16
        Memory at fe6f0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: ath5k

I have been seeing the message in kernels from 2.6.18 to 2.6.32-rc7.

Comment 1 Bob Copeland 2009-11-16 13:55:10 UTC

This message should already be removed in wireless-testing - can you test there?

Comment 2 John W. Linville 2010-03-01 18:58:43 UTC

Have you tested 2.6.33?

Comment 3 Frederic Bezies 2010-04-06 08:04:54 UTC

I'm seeing the same problem with a frugalware-current installation.

After 90 to 120 minutes, my atheros wifi chipset goes mad. And it kills my wireless network connexion.

Here is what says dmesg says, starting with stop of wireless connexion :

ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2417MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2422MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2427MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2432MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
net_ratelimit: 10 callbacks suppressed
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2462MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2467MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2472MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
No probe response from AP 00:1d:6a:9b:6f:a0 after 500ms, disconnecting.
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2417MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2422MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2427MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2432MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2437MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2442MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2447MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2452MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2457MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2462MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2467MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2472MHz)
net_ratelimit: 1 callbacks suppressed
[about 50 lines like this]

More infos on my computer :

Frugalware-current, kernel 2.6.33. (or 2.6.33.1 ?!)

fred@frugalware:~/download$ pacman -Qi kernel
Nom            : kernel
Version        : 2.6.33-1
Groupes        : base 
Emballeur      : Christian Hamar alias krix
URL            : http://www.kernel.org
License        : Aucun
Architecture   : x86_64
Taille         : 96745375
Date de construction : Fri Mar 12 13:41:57 2010 UTC
Type de construction : chroot
Date d'installation     : Fri Apr  2 17:07:42 2010 UTC
Script d'installation    : Oui
Raison         : Explicitement installé
Fournit        : Aucun
Dépend de      : module-init-tools sed alsa-firmware irqbalance 
Supprime      : Aucun
Requit par     : kernel-docs nvidia 
Conflit avec   : Aucun
Description    : The Linux Kernel and modules


And my atheros chipset :

05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

Hope it helps a little.

Comment 4 Bob Copeland 2010-04-06 12:02:57 UTC

This isn't the same: the original report said noise floor calibration timeout, whereas you have a gain calibration timeout.

You'll need to specify the actual chipset reported by ath5k upon loading (something like "Atheros ARXXXX chip found (MAC: 0xXX, PHY: 0xXX").

Comment 5 Frederic Bezies 2010-04-07 18:20:33 UTC

Ok.

Here it is :

ath5k phy0: Atheros AR2425 chip found (MAC: 0xe2, PHY: 0x70)

Anyway, my wifi chipset is unusable.

Comment 6 Bob Copeland 2010-04-08 13:24:25 UTC

Created attachment 25915 [details]
temporary work-around 

Does this patch help?

(It does deal with NF calibration but could affect gain calibration as well.)

Comment 7 Frederic Bezies 2010-04-08 15:07:12 UTC

I will ask frugalware kernel maintainer if it could be merged into 2.6.33 source code (I reported bug on frugalware bugtracker : http://bugs.frugalware.org/task/4156) and tell you asap.

Thanks for the patch.

Comment 8 Bob Copeland 2010-04-08 15:14:32 UTC

Ok.  It's probably ok to include it but long term a better patch will be needed.

Comment 9 Frederic Bezies 2010-04-10 16:40:52 UTC

Well, it doesn't help a lot. Kernel maintainer for frugalware include it using a patch.

And my wifi connexion dies after a few minutes.

Here is what dmesg says about it :

eth0: no IPv6 routers present
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
wlan0: direct probe to AP 00:1d:6a:9b:6f:a0 (try 1)
wlan0: direct probe responded
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:1d:6a:9b:6f:a0 (try 1)
wlan0: authenticated
wlan0: associate with AP 00:1d:6a:9b:6f:a0 (try 1)
wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:1d:6a:9b:6f:a0 (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=1)
wlan0: associated
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
wlan0: no IPv6 routers present
eth0: link down.
CE: hpet increasing min_delta_ns to 15000 nsec
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2417MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2422MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2427MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2432MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2437MHz)
net_ratelimit: 10 callbacks suppressed
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2467MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2472MHz)
ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
No probe response from AP 00:1d:6a:9b:6f:a0 after 500ms, disconnecting.

Link to the patch, so that you can look at it :

http://ftp.frugalware.org/pub/other/people/vmiklos/bmf/frugalware-i686/kernel-2.6.33-2-i686.patch

Well, I'm kinda disappointed :(

Comment 10 Tomas Mudrunka 2010-06-11 15:47:44 UTC

i am getting this message too. and sometimes also messages similar to those:

ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration failed (2417MHz)
ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration timeout (2417MHz)
__ratelimit: 42 callbacks suppressed
ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration failed (5745MHz)
ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration failed (5745MHz)

Comment 11 John W. Linville 2010-08-13 17:24:58 UTC

Original poster never responded past comment 2.  The later comments seem to deal with separate issues and/or messages that no longer exist in 2.6.35.  I'm going to close this one -- please open new bugs for any continuing issues.