Solution for Qualcomm Atheros AR816x, AR817x and Killer E220x

[intruder16]

Vielen Dank!

 

Learning german for about 4 months now. 

[MadMax3947]

Finally solved my connection dropping issue. In the BIOS, "Ipv4 PXE Support" and "Ipv6 PXE Support" need to be set to Disabled, even if "Network stack" is disabled. The PXE Support options are hidden unless you temporarily enable Network stack (but Network stack needs to be disabled as well).

[Mieze]

I just pushed version 2.0.0, which is identical to 2.0.0d1, to GitHub and updated the binary in the download section of this site a few minutes ago.

 

Have fun! 

 

Mieze

[samtt]

Thank you Mieze,

 

I try this driver and it works with my GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK (Atheros E2201), OS: 10.10.3. There is only one question regarding the Wake on LAN function. I turn on the WoL support from BIOS, enable the Wake for network access in "Energy Saver" tag, send the magic packet from another server in the same LAN. But the system didn't wake up.

 

Attached is the wireshark snapshot that shows the magic packet arrived when system is up. 

 

Would you please give me a hint that where should I check to debug the WoL function?

[Mieze]

Would you please give me a hint that where should I check to debug the WoL function?

 

Bios settings or DSDT.

 

Mieze

[samtt]

this seems too difficult to me to edit the DSDT. Is there any good example to show the modification or patch of the WoL support?

[Mieze]

this seems too difficult to me to edit the DSDT. Is there any good example to show the modification or patch of the WoL support?

 

Start with the BIOS settings and check them again as this is the solution in most cases. Sometimes the solution is not as obvious as expected and hard to find. That's why you should dig deeper.

 

Mieze

[samtt]

Hello Mieze,

 

Eventually I got the system wake up! The ErP should be set to Disable.

 

Thanks for your hint!

[tornado99]

Start with the BIOS settings and check them again as this is the solution in most cases. Sometimes the solution is not as obvious as expected and hard to find. That's why you should dig deeper.

 

Mieze

Hi Mieze,

 

The firmware for QCA988x which is used by Killer N1525 Wireless has now been added to ath10k, and people are having success using it in Linux:

 

https://github.com/sumdog/ath10k-firmware

 

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1383184

 

Would it be possible for you to port Killer N1525 support to OS-X?

 

many thanks

[Mieze]

Would it be possible for you to port Killer N1525 support to OS-X?

 

No, because Apple doesn't publish the frameworks for wireless drivers. You will have a hard time trying to write an OS X driver for a wifi device. Besides that, I'm not interested in wireless networking and try to avoid it whenever possible.

 

Mieze

[NiPeGun]

Hello Mieze. I sent you a PM related with this thread.

Awaiting reply.

 

Thanx!

[coolspot18]

Hi,

 

Ever since I upgraded to Yosemite 10.10.4, I've been getting strange errors with my E2200 card:

 

7/2/15 1:53:15.000 PM kernel[0]: Ethernet [AtherosE2200]: Fatal interrupt. Reseting chip. ISR=0x200

 

This seems to happen most often when I am copying files to my SMB shared folder.

 

This has only started happening in 10.10.4, previously, the driver was very solid.

 

Is anyone else running into this issue as well?

 

Thanks.

[Mieze]

Hi,

 

Ever since I upgraded to Yosemite 10.10.4, I've been getting strange errors with my E2200 card:

 

7/2/15 1:53:15.000 PM kernel[0]: Ethernet [AtherosE2200]: Fatal interrupt. Reseting chip. ISR=0x200

 

This seems to happen most often when I am copying files to my SMB shared folder.

 

This has only started happening in 10.10.4, previously, the driver was very solid.

 

Is anyone else running into this issue as well?

 

I have two machines with version 2.0.0 of this driver running under 10.10.4 (including my server with 24/7 uptime), and none of them has had any problems since I upgraded to 10.10.4 almost 6 days ago. That's why I'm quite sure that your problem is neither a driver bug nor has anything to do with 10.10.4 in particular, but it reminds me of this issue:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/300056-solution-for-qualcomm-atheros-ar816x-ar817x-and-killer-e220x/?p=2128204

 

According to experiences I made during test runs while the driver was still under development, fatal interrupts occur when something has disabled the NIC's ability to act as a bus master so that it's no longer able to perform DMA operations. Did you change anything in the UEFI setup, in particular with regard to the UEFI network support? It might also be a sleep/wake related problem which usually indicates that there is something wrong in the DSDT.

 

Mieze

 

PS: Please send me your complete kernel logs!

Edited July 9, 2015 by Mieze

[coolspot18]

Hi Mieze,

 

I gave the suggested fix a try by disabling the "Ipv4 PXE Support" and "Ipv6 PXE Support" options in the BIOS but this did not fix things.

 

It seems that every time my networking has died it was because a SMB copy was running! Normal day to day operation the system seems to be very stable, but every few SMB copies the driver will lock up.

 

What logs would help to debug this issue? Should I send over my entire log file? 

 

Thanks!

 

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/300056-solution-for-qualcomm-atheros-ar816x-ar817x-and-killer-e220x/?p=2128204

 

According to experiences I made during test runs while the driver was still under development, fatal interrupts occur when something has disabled the NIC's ability to act as a bus master so that it's no longer able to perform DMA operations. Did you change anything in the UEFI setup, in particular with regard to the UEFI network support? It might also be a sleep/wake related problem which usually indicates that there is something wrong in the DSDT.

 

Mieze

 

PS: Please send me your complete kernel logs!

[Mieze]

Please see post #1 of this thread for instructions.

 

Mieze

[Mieze]

I have published version 2.0.1 (source and binary) which improves flow control support in 100MBit mode a few moments ago.

[joe75]

The hardest working women in hackint0sh!  ^^

[modulus16]

Mieze,

 

I didn't see this in the thread, but I may have missed it. I have a GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK with both an Intel i217-v and Atheros Killer E2201 LAN. I've got the Intel kext installed and working perfectly, but will there be any problems installing your driver along with the Intel driver? I ask, because looking at your instructions it says to remove en0, but right now my en0 is the Intel i217.

 

Thanks for your help! And thanks for the (apparently) great driver!

[coolspot18]

I have two machines with version 2.0.0 of this driver running under 10.10.4 (including my server with 24/7 uptime), and none of them has had any problems since I upgraded to 10.10.4 almost 6 days ago. That's why I'm quite sure that your problem is neither a driver bug nor has anything to do with 10.10.4 in particular, but it reminds me of this issue:

 

Interestingly the issue seems to have stopped - I'm not sure what changed. My network card no longer is throwing the reset error.

 

 

 

 

UPDATE: 6 months later started happening again. Very odd.

[Mieze]

Interestingly the issue seems to have stopped - I'm not sure what changed. My wireless networking is no longer hanging randomly.

Wireless? This is a driver for ethernet devices. What is the point?

 

Mieze

[Huberer]

Hello Mieze,

 

first of all I want to say thank you for your hard and perfect work. I really enjoy using your network drivers (which I did before with the Realtek and the Intel ones).

Everything runs great but I found an issue. Don't know if it is driver or bios related. As you can see in my sig I'm using an Asrock B85M-ITX like you do (and this was also a reason why I've bought it). I use this mobo because of it's good power savings settings.

One of my tests are if I could get the C7 state of the CPU (i7-4770S). Therefore I've enabled everything in Bios (Advanced=> CPU Configuration). You can see it on the screen shot. With this settings, and some undervolting, I can get an idle power consumption of around 9,1 watts (with monitor off). It looks like that Yosemite is able to use C7 state.

But unfortunatelly download speed falls down to around 300-400 KBit/s. Normally I've around 3000 KBit's (I only have a 30Mbit internet connection). It looks like that the onboard lan is only using 100Mbit instead of Gigabit.

To find a reason why it is like that it's the "Package C State Support" under CPU Configuration/Advance in Bios. When I change this option to "disable" or to "Auto" I've the full download speed again. Unfortunately the power consumption rises to around 15 watts in idle and monitor off. Even when I change from C7 to C6 in "Package C State Support" the same issue remain. Only idle is around 11 watts.

 

Do you knwo why it is like that and is there a chance to use both (C7 and fast download)?

 

Thanks in advance

Huberer

[Mieze]

Hello Mieze,

 

first of all I want to say thank you for your hard and perfect work. I really enjoy using your network drivers (which I did before with the Realtek and the Intel ones).

Everything runs great but I found an issue. Don't know if it is driver or bios related. As you can see in my sig I'm using an Asrock B85M-ITX like you do (and this was also a reason why I've bought it). I use this mobo because of it's good power savings settings.

One of my tests are if I could get the C7 state of the CPU (i7-4770S). Therefore I've enabled everything in Bios (Advanced=> CPU Configuration). You can see it on the screen shot. With this settings, and some undervolting, I can get an idle power consumption of around 9,1 watts (with monitor off). It looks like that Yosemite is able to use C7 state.

But unfortunatelly download speed falls down to around 300-400 KBit/s. Normally I've around 3000 KBit's (I only have a 30Mbit internet connection). It looks like that the onboard lan is only using 100Mbit instead of Gigabit.

To find a reason why it is like that it's the "Package C State Support" under CPU Configuration/Advance in Bios. When I change this option to "disable" or to "Auto" I've the full download speed again. Unfortunately the power consumption rises to around 15 watts in idle and monitor off. Even when I change from C7 to C6 in "Package C State Support" the same issue remain. Only idle is around 11 watts.

 

Do you knwo why it is like that and is there a chance to use both (C7 and fast download)?

 

Thanks in advance

Huberer

 

First of all it's a well known fact that power management can degrade I/O performance so that I assume that your problem is due to your PM settings in particular as the download speed is affected.

 

Second, I can't reproduce this behavior on my machine. Although I've got all C-states enabled too, I haven't experienced any negative side effects with regard to I/O performance. The only difference is that I didn't undervolt the machine but left all voltage related settings at their defaults because undervolting can have a serious impact on system stability if it's done improperly. On the other hand, my machine is a server so that it's never really idle at all.

 

Mieze

[Huberer]

Hello Mieze,

 

thanks for the answer and testing. I'm pretty sure that I've tested the C-states-settings without undervolting and the result was the same. I will do this test again (without uv) to be 100% sure.

I know that uv can cause stability issues but I do it just with small steps to be at the safe side.

My system is not a real server because most time my hackintosh idles around and that's why did this testing. Nethertheless it's not a big issue I just wanted to know how I can resolve this matter.

 

Thanks again

Huberer

[shakakoa]

 

Key Features of the Driver

• Supports Qualcomm Atheros AR816x, AR817x and Killer E220x.
• Support for multisegment packets relieving the network stack of unnecessary copy operations when assembling packets for transmission.
• No-copy receive and transmit. Only small packets are copied on reception because creating a copy is more efficient than allocating a new buffer.
• TCP, UDP and IPv4 checksum offload (receive and transmit).
• Support for TCP/IPv6 and UDP/IPv6 checksum offload.
• Makes use of the chip's TCP Segmentation Offload (TSO) feature with IPv4 and IPv6 in order to reduce CPU load while sending large amounts of data.
• Fully optimized for Mountain Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite (64bit architecture) but should work with Lion too, provided you build from source with the 10.7 SDK.
• Wake on LAN support.
• VLAN support is implemented but untested as I have no need for it.
• The driver is published under GPLv2.

 

Is there any way at all to add support to the E2400 Killer Network lan?  I have a MSI X99A Godlike Gaming board and not able to get my ethernet to show up in El Capitan.  How difficult would it be to get the E2400 support added to this kext? 

 

Thanks!

[Mieze]

Is there any way at all to add support to the E2400 Killer Network lan?  I have a MSI X99A Godlike Gaming board and not able to get my ethernet to show up in El Capitan.  How difficult would it be to get the E2400 support added to this kext? 

I need at least the source code of a working linux driver for Killer E2400 as a starting point.

 

Mieze