Comment 431 for bug 461419

I just acquired an IBM Thinkpad T42p laptop and the ath5k driver is unusable with the miniPCI I have installed in the system. It is actually a Philips adapter from a T40p but that shouldn't matter. I'm on Lucid Lynx beta and I tried all stages as described above.

I installed:
linux-backports-modules-wireless-lucid-generic

which installed this package:
linux-backports-modules-wireless-2.6.32-18-generic

ath5k did not connect after doing that so I tried installing bleeding edge compat wireless.
This is the tarball I used:
compat-wireless-2010-03-28

lspci -vvnn:
02:02.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5211 802.11ab NIC [168c:0012] (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Phillips Components Device [17ab:8310]
 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV+ VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx-
 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 Latency: 96 (2500ns min, 7000ns max), Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
 Region 0: Memory at c0210000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
 Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
  Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
  Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=2 PME-
 Kernel driver in use: ath_pci
 Kernel modules: ath_pci, ath5k

As you can see, I'm using ath_pci to be able to connect to the Internet. Even with that driver the connectivity is rather bad (20-30% signal strength at 11Mbps). It stops working randomly so I have to re-associate to get connectivity back. Just on my right here is a T60 with this card:

Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC [168c:1014] (rev 01)
 Subsystem: IBM Device [1014:057e]

Which is the same card as mentioned in the bug description.
The T60 has a stable connection with 55-70% signal strength at 48Mbps.

I hope that helps. I can provide apport information if you require it.