Mailing List os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com Archived Message #1069

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My apologies to everyone for the length of this post. Rick, my reply
appears below your text.

On 08/13/06 02:04 pm, Rick R. thus wrote :
> The extensions work just fine under FireFox/2. Indeed almost all of
> them do (including some fancy weather radar stuff).
> Its just the added network traffic that causes the SOCKET.SYS error to
> appear that more often.
> Yet I had the same appear already during FTP sessions or heafty
> browser window swapping.
>
> None of those "official" patches worked!
>
> But I won't simply try to avoid using the Internet at all cost, just
> to compensate for a brain damaged TCP/IP stack!
>
> Whoever wrote those dumb ass drivers anyway?
> Not even under Windoze did I ever encounter such a basically flawed
> driver stack!
>
> If the price for using OS/2 is to lack behind all others, then its a
> price to high to be paid!
>

Rick, let me just make a couple points and hopefully get you moving in
the right direction:

1. This is an all-volunteer, user-to-user mailing list which is
focused on wireless connectivity under OS/2 and eCS. It is *not* a
"bash IBM," "bash OS/2," "bash eComStation," or "lash out at
anyone and everyone for Heisenbugs
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenbug) or perceived networking
inadequacies in any operating system or other software, which may
or may not appear in a given OS/2 setup.
2. As others on this list use the same build of OS/2, GenMAC, TCP/IP,
and Firefox as you are using, and as those same people are not
experiencing the same issue(s) you seem to be having, blaming your
problems on a "basically flawed driver stack" is a bit off-base.
Evidently, either there is something odd about your hardware or
software which is causing these issues or your configuration is a
bit mucked up; the later build of GenMAC seems to have better
exposed the problem(s), that's all.
3. You are free to stop using OS/2 anytime you wish. None of us here
has a financial stake in your decision. We are willing to help
track down the problem, but we are not here to listen to you vent
uncontrollably. We have all been frustrated by elusive issues at
one time or another; we just tend to band together to do what we
can to help each other out. What holds us together is a mutual
respect and admiration (some for their knowledge and willingness
to assist and share; others for their perseverance and willingness
to test new things and ideas to try to track down the problem).

This is an unmoderated list. In general, I don't like to get involved in
commenting on the rhetoric it sometimes conveys. However, that being
said, there are times when I feel it may be necessary to remind people
of why this list exists and the lack of monetary reward for anything it
provides (essentially, you get what you pay for; the advice is free, so
take it or leave it, but don't complain about it).

I told you that I would pursue the mater on your behalf with Serenity
Systems as a registered consultant and reseller, and I shall. I do
apologize for unrealistically claiming that I would do it the other
afternoon, when I was so entrenched in the business of the day. I will
pick up on it tomorrow, and keep you posted. I seem to have missed your
post of August 9, wherein you mentioned that you were not running eCS,
but rather WSeB, due to the lack of an upgrade path to eCS (which is not
entirely true; there is a migration facility included with eCS to ease
the transition of your desktop and applications). Frankly, unless you
can reproduce the issue under eCS, it's going to be difficult to get
Serenity to address it. It is hard to believe, considering the age of
WSeB, that this issue just now cropped up and yet is supposed to be
related to a broken TCP/IP stack.

I have provided a couple suggestions for you without specifics on your
system. Others have offered their suggestions, as well.

To Neil Waldhauer, who suggested that you locate an(other) IBM ThinkPad
from eBay, along with a supported Wi-Fi card, you responded:

MR. I AM USING AN IBM THINKPAD!
Don't be so presumptious.
And there are no native WiFi drivers for the T42p.
So I got to use GenMAC.

Your second line is both insulting and completely out of line; this was
uncalled for. Neil explained that he has several systems - supposedly
using the same TCP/IP stack as yours - which are working well, without
the issue you describe (and frankly, bad RAM could be the root of your
trouble, as well as a hairline crack in either the system board or the
Wi-Fi card itself, notwithstanding your point about seeing a similar
problem - though less often - on your T30).

Have you tried swapping the RAM (or alternately removing one memory
module and then the other) on the systemboard?

Roderick Klein's comment about the OS/2 stack being "not that bad" is
well taken; OS/2 inherited much of the stack from AIX, and while it is
now somewhat dated in its feature set (only a single DHCP interface and
so forth), it is in general quite stable.

In fact, in all of this, you have never - AFAICT - listed the *exact*
error, crash, or trap you get in SOCKETS.SYS, which would be a big help
in troubleshooting the underlying problem (and no, I don't believe that
Firefox or any particular extension is at fault). A TRAP003, TRAP00D ,
and TRAP008 are completely different things, and while classifying them
all as "crashes," each may point in a completely different direction.

On August 9, you mentioned that you saw this problem before (though
admittedly less often) on your T30 without using GenMAC. As you did not
migrate your system to eCS, I'm curious as to how you made the
transition from the T30 to the T42 without a clean install. If hardware
isn't the issue, then we need to determine what skeletons were in the
closet before you made the hardware move (my T30 was quite stable, and
did not suffer problems with SOCKETS.SYS AFAICR).



From your post of August 10:
> I am using the E1000 driver on my T420.
> PCI scan:
> Vendor 8086h Intel Corporation
> Device 101Eh 82540EP Gigabit Ethernet Controller
> (Mobile)
>
>
I didn't see which version of the E1000 driver you are currently using,
or whether you have tried moving back (or forward) a revision to test.
> Vendor 168Ch Atheros Communications Inc
> Device 1014h 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter
>
> And I'm only using the WiFi connection now.
> But the same did happen when I used the wired
> connection.
>
>
Does "currently using" mean that you simply don't have a cable
connected, or that you do not have the driver loaded in CONFIG.SYS and
not present in PROTOCOL.INI? Also, for GenMAC, try the following in
PROTOCOL.INI: in the section for your Wi-Fi driver, try the following
option:

OPTIONS = "STACK32"

(Dave, don't ask me what this does, as I'm still not clear. However,
there was a posting about it on the GenMAC user list some time ago,
which seemed to cure some stability issues for some of us, so I adopted
it early on while getting my Intel 2915 working.)

However, the above might only address GenMAC's exposure of the
underlying problem and not the issue itself (you mention that the
problem appears more frequently with GenMAC 1.7).
> Fact is, I am not able to use WiFi and Wired at the
> same time if they are both on the same network.
> The first one to be activated seems to cancel the
> other out.
>
That is correct behavior, and unless you use a teaming NIC driver (such
as those provided for certain server configurations), where the two
drivers are actually "bonded" together to form a single logical NIC, you
do not want both NICs connected to the same network. Scan through the
archives of this list, to read Christian Langanke's comments - and the
ensuing discussion - concerning this type of arrangement. (And please,
everyone, let's not get farther OT in this thread by arguing the point;
for now let's accept that this is where we are, and focus this thread on
Rick's problem.)
> I can only use both if they are on different networks.
>
>
Correct, per above.
> Finally, how can I stop "wlanstat.exe" from displaying
> the splash screen and blinking all the time?
>
>
I have no idea; sorry. Perhaps this is a symptom of the problem you are
experiencing? A resource conflict somewhere?



Do you have a spare drive on which you might try a clean install of eCS?
This might also help eliminate the hardware as a point of failure.

This post has taken me well over an hour to prepare. My wife is now
looking at me cross-eyed, as I have been holding up dinner, and my kids
are famished. My point is not that I'm hungry and have an angry spouse
and rapidly thinning children, but that I'm happy to take the time to
help and offer what I think may be substantive commentary; all I ask is
the same cordiality in return, and not the impatience I've seen of late.

--
Lewis
------------------------------------------------------------
Lewis G Rosenthal, CNA, CLP, CLE
Rosenthal & Rosenthal, LLC
Accountants / Network Consultants
New York / Northern Virginia www.2rosenthals.com
eComStation Consultants www.ecomstation.com
Novell Users Int'l www.novell.com/openenterpriseserver
Need a managed Wi-Fi hotspot? www.hautspot.com
------------------------------------------------------------


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