freebsd stable - Jan 2010 - recommended miniPCI 802.11a/b/g card for Soekris net5501 running FreeBSD 8-STABLE?

I've been trying to get reliable wireless AP functionality in my Soekris
net5501 (http://soekris.com/net5501.htm) box for some time now. In the
past I've reported a problem with it
(http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-stable@freebsd.org/msg105623.html)
that causes it to report "ath0: stuck beacon; resetting (bmiss count
4)". I can minimise this by increasing the count but I still get the
problem and the wifi connection is patchy - dropped connections, and low
transfer speeds. So, I think the easiest solution is to get a better
card. Can somebody please recommend any such miniPCI board.

My existing board is a Wistron Neweb CM9 miniPCI wireless card,
802.11abg which is based on the Atheros AR5004 chipset.

Some cards that are easy for me to get are the Wistron Neweb DCMA-81,
5006 Super AG Atheros 6G which uses Atheros AR5414, and Senao NMP-8602
PLUS-S / EMP-8602 PLUS-S which uses AR 5006. I can probably source any
others that anybody can suggest, too.

I'm not after super speed or range, just reliable performance in a
net5501 running FreeBSD 8-STABLE and acting as a wireless access point
using WPA2.

Thanks for any assistance,
  Graham

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 4:50 PM, Graham Menhennitt
<graham@menhennitt.com.au
> wrote:
> I've been trying to get reliable wireless AP functionality in my
Soekris
> net5501 (http://soekris.com/net5501.htm) box for some time now. In the
> past I've reported a problem with it
> (http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-stable@freebsd.org/msg105623.html)
> that causes it to report "ath0: stuck beacon; resetting (bmiss count
> 4)". I can minimise this by increasing the count but I still get the
> problem and the wifi connection is patchy - dropped connections, and low
> transfer speeds. So, I think the easiest solution is to get a better
> card. Can somebody please recommend any such miniPCI board.
>
> My existing board is a Wistron Neweb CM9 miniPCI wireless card,
> 802.11abg which is based on the Atheros AR5004 chipset.
>
> Some cards that are easy for me to get are the Wistron Neweb DCMA-81,
> 5006 Super AG Atheros 6G which uses Atheros AR5414, and Senao NMP-8602
> PLUS-S / EMP-8602 PLUS-S which uses AR 5006. I can probably source any
> others that anybody can suggest, too.
>
> I'm not after super speed or range, just reliable performance in a
> net5501 running FreeBSD 8-STABLE and acting as a wireless access point
> using WPA2.
>
> Thanks for any assistance,
>  Graham
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to
"freebsd-stable-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"

 I have two CM9 and two NL-5354MP miniPCI wireless cards on different
Soekris net4521s that do are working fine.
Except for the multiple hostapd client broadcast traffic problem I posted on
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2009-December/053757.html
they
have shown no problems like you describe on 8.0 or 7.2.

 Perhaps with the slower CPU the problem does not show up for me, but I
would be suprised its your card thats the problem.

-Russ

for about two years, i have been using the Metrix CM9 miniPCI
(<http://metrix.net/cm9-p-2.html>) on freebsd 8 on a 5501 and
have been happy with it

randy