Linksys W54Gv2 (acx chipset) frequenty hangs in Puppy 4.1.x

[MikeLockmoore]

I love Puppy 4.1.2, but I have one major frustration with it on my laptop. My WiFi network connection freezes up at random times, although it happens much more frequently during high-usage periods. If I'm surfing through web sites with a lot of graphics, or streaming some media, I get a lockup about every 2 to 10 minutes. This did not happen at all with the ACX driver in Puppy 2.17.

I've checked my dmesg output, and after a hang, I see statements like this:

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276:acx: phy0: tx error 0x20, buf 15! (excessive Tx retries due to either distance too high or unable to Tx or Tx frame error - try changing 'iwconfig txpower XXX' or 'sens'itivity or 'retry')
277:acx: phy0: tx error 0x20, buf 07! (excessive Tx retries due to either distance too high or unable to Tx or Tx frame error - try changing 'iwconfig txpower XXX' or 'sens'itivity or 'retry')
278:acx: phy0: tx error 0x20, buf 15! (excessive Tx retries due to either distance too high or unable to Tx or Tx frame error - try changing 'iwconfig txpower XXX' or 'sens'itivity or 'retry')
279:acx: phy0: several excessive Tx retry errors occurred, attempting to recalibrate radio. Radio drift might be caused by increasing card temperature, please check the card before it's too late!
280:acx: phy0: tx error 0x20, buf 15! (excessive Tx retries due to either distance too high or unable to Tx or Tx frame error - try changing 'iwconfig txpower XXX' or 'sens'itivity or 'retry')
281:acx: too many TX errors??
282:acx: Jobs still to be run: 4

Based on these messages and another thread I saw in this Networking area, I tried creating a startup script with the following statements:

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#!/bin/sh
iwconfig wlan0 txpower 17
iwconfig wlan0 retry 19
iwconfig wlan0 rate 5.5M fixed

But I can't say this has helped much. I made an attempt to try the NDISWrapper approach, but at least in my installation, the NDISWrapper part of the networking wizard is totally broken (gets stuck at certain step).

Anyone have any ideas on how I can make my Linksys Wireless G v 2 work reliably? It seems to have the 1130 version of the TI ACX chipset. This adapter is a PCMCIA type.

As it is now, I can reinitialize my connection in the network wizard in about 10 mouse-clicks. If I can't get the wlan driver working reliably, a next-best approach would be to boil down the resetting behavior of the Network wizard into a fully automated script that I could run with one click. Anyone know what statements I'd need to to pull that off?

I can provide more info it it will help someone come up with a correct diagnosis

Thanks for any help!

[coffeemike2k3]

I am using my old IBM T20 laptop with the Linksys WPC54G v2 PCMCIA card. I got it to work with Ndiswrapper. What you have to do is:
1. Have a fresh bootup with Puppy 4.2
2. Click on the connect icon (left side of screen), select icon "Internet by network or wireless lan", click on icon "load module", click on "More" tab, click on icon "unload", select "acx-mac80211", select icon "blacklist", exit out of network wizard
3. Reboot puppy linux
4. Click on the connect icon (left side of screen), select icon "Internet by network or wireless lan", click on icon "load module", click on "More" tab, click on icon "unload", select "acx", select icon "blacklist", exit out of network wizard
5. Reboot puppy linux
6. Click on the connect icon (left side of screen), select icon "Internet by network or wireless lan", click on icon "load module", click on "Ndiswrapper" tab, click on "use Ndiswrapper", load the "LSTINDS.INF" file from the Linksys driver cd, configure your wireless connection

You should now have a working connection. This procedure works with WPA too!