bcm43xx firmware is too old

Will Woods wwoods at redhat.com
Sat May 12 00:48:43 UTC 2007


On Fri, 2007-05-11 at 16:20 -0700, Clifford Snow wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-05-11 at 15:12 -0700, alan wrote:
> > On Fri, 11 May 2007, Clifford Snow wrote:
> > 
> > > On Fri, 2007-05-11 at 14:10 -0700, alan wrote:
> > >> On Fri, 11 May 2007, Clifford Snow wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> Received the following error message on F7 Test 4:
> > >>> kernel: bcm43xx_mac80211: YOUR FIRMWARE IS TOO OLD. Firmware from binary
> > >>> drivers older than version 4.x is unsupported. You must upgrade your
> > >>> firmware files.
> > >>>
> > >> .
> > >>
> > >> This really depends on the model number and revision of your chipset.
> > >>
> > >> I have a bcm4306 revision 2 chipset.  The bcm43xx_mac80211 driver will not
> > >> work for me.  (The chipset does not have enough memory for the revision 4
> > >> firmware.)  I had to blacklist that driver and use the old bcm43xx driver.
> > >
> > > I also have the bcm4306 revision 2 chipset.  I'm not sure what you mean
> > > by blacklist the driver to use the old bcm43xx driver.
> > >
> > > If the older chip isn't able to handle the requirements for the new
> > > bcm43xx module, shouldn't that be discovered on install?
> > 
> > "Should" and "Does" are two different things.
> > 
> > Add the module name to /etc/modules.d/blacklist.  (Edit the file and you 
> > will see what it wants for format.)
> Thanks! That worked great.
> 
> For other with the same problem, I added blacklist bcm43xx_mac80211
> to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
> 
> removed the old modules with rmmod bcm43xx_mac80211
> added the new module with modprobe bcm43xx
> 
> I rebooted to make sure that everything loaded correctly next time I
> turn the laptop on.
> 
> Now it recognizes the old softmac module.  
> 
> Should this be filed in bugzilla?  

Well, you can get newer (4.x) firmware from the addresses listed in the
bcm43xx-fwcutter README file, for instance:

http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2

Un-blacklist the old card and give that a try first. For a little extra
background, FWN nicely summarized a previous discussion about this:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue86 - part 4.9 ("When Two Broadcom
Drivers Go To War")

If it turns out that your card *can't* run bcm43xx-mac80211 (e.g. memory
too small for 4.x firmware, like alan) then *please* file a bug.
linville changed the drivers so they're splitting up which PCI IDs they
claim. The split had some gray area covered by some best guesses. If we
got it a bit wrong, let us know and we'll get it fixed as soon as we
can.

-w
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