Hello everyone,

I wonder if it would possible to exchange the Texas Instruments WiFi card  with an Atheros or Broadcom based to gain a working WiFi AP on AR7 based Routers? Broadcom based MiniPCI cards are available at ~15-20 Euros everywhere, Atheros based maybe 20-25 Euros.

AFAIK the MiniPCI is connected via the TI VLYNQ Interface, so it's not "native" PCI.

Regards,
Marcus

P.S.: And well, how do I choose another WiFi card if I have choosen AR7 as target platform in the current trunk? The only possible WiFi card is Texas Instruments...

(Last edited by yoless on 3 Sep 2008, 22:56)

The ti card is not a minipci card and the slot is also not minipci. I have tried atheros cards which did not work. When I tried to find out why it did not work someone explained to me that the vlynq card would work in a minipci slot, but not the other way around.

So the VLYNQ is not a bridge to PCI rather than a native interface which goes on a Minipci form factor Wifi card with additional VLYNQ pins?

Weird. But not good. I thought it would easier to get an Router/DSL-Modem/WiFi box up and running with OpenWRT. Maybe not an AR7 based one.

There are many rumours about this questions, but I never saw any documentation which proves that VLYNQ is not a bridge.
As long as the manufacturer (TI) does not provide better documentation, the only way to get more information is try and
error: use some other mini PCI card and try to read the PCI configuration registers. If you succeed, that would be a strong
indication that you can get the card running.

I personally think this will work, and VLYNQ is a bridge. Then there is still no software to operate this bridge under Linux,
so Broadcom or Atheros drivers won't work. Some time ago, there were Linux patches in OpenWrt which mapped VLYNQ to PCI.

Stefan

So will it be.

I've just ordered an Atheros MiniPCI card at Ebay. Then i will poke a little bit around in the registers and on the PCB. Maybe I find something interesting.
If that will not work, I put this card in my old Toshiba notebook, which actually has only a 11Mbit/s MiniPCI card.

Marcus

As expected:

Neither my old 11MBit/s Lucent Minipci nor my brand new 108MBit/s Atheros card runs in this slot or is even detected.
So I will wait for an updated acx-driver with master mode *and* wpa/wap2.

Nevertheless I have now a faster Wifi card in my vintage Toshiba notebook.

Marcus

The AR7 wi-fi cards will be recognized in a normal MiniPCI slot, but not the other way around. There is no way around that.