[ltp] Thinkpad T43: wireless keeps dropping, firmware error

[fire-eyes]

I am using an IBM Thinkpad T43 laptop. It has an Intel Pro Wireless 2915 abg 
wireless card in it. This uses the ipw2200 driver.

Most of the time when I use wireless, it is solid. However every few days or 
weeks (there seems to be no pattern), I run into a day where 6 - 20 times in 
that given day, the wireless just plain drops. I have to unload the modules, 
reload them, restart the network interface, etc etc.

This is one of those days. In logs I see:

ipw2200: Firmware error detected.  Restarting.
ipw2200: Firmware error detected.  Restarting.

This situation is extremely annoying. I have posted on lists before, but I 
have never found any solution to this.

Any ideas?

 [ Gentoo Specific information ]

lappie ~ # equery l ieee80211
[ Searching for package 'ieee80211' in all categories among: ]
 * installed packages
[I--] [  ] net-wireless/ieee80211-1.1.13-r1 (0)

lappie ~ # equery l ipw2200
[ Searching for package 'ipw2200' in all categories among: ]
 * installed packages
[I--] [  ] net-wireless/ipw2200-1.1.2-r1 (0)
[I--] [  ] net-wireless/ipw2200-firmware-3.0 (0)



Portage 2.1.1_pre2-r4 (default-linux/x86/2006.0, gcc-3.4.6/vanilla, 
glibc-2.3.6-r4, 2.6.17.4-ifc i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.17.4-ifc i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.86GHz
Gentoo Base System version 1.6.15
distcc 2.18.3 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) 
[enabled]
ccache version 2.3 [enabled]
dev-lang/python:     2.4.3-r1
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
dev-util/ccache:     2.3
dev-util/confcache:  [Not Present]
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.18.1
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.60
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2
sys-devel/binutils:  2.17
sys-devel/gcc-config: 2.0.0_rc1
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.22
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.11-r5
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-Os -march=pentium-m -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/NX/etc /usr/NX/home /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/eselect/compiler /etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo"
CXXFLAGS="-Os -march=pentium-m -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distcc distlocks metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms 
strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://fido.online.kz/gentoo http://src.gentoo.pl 
http://ftp.twaren.net/Linux/Gentoo/ 
ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/ 
ftp://ftp.twaren.net/Linux/Gentoo/"
LINGUAS="en"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude='/distfiles' --exclude='/local' --exclude='/packages'"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 3dnow X a52 alsa apache2 apm avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 cdr chroot 
cli crypt dlloader dri dv dvd dvdr dvdread eds emboss encode ffmpeg flac 
foomaticdb fortran gdbm gif gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal imlib isdnlog jpeg kde 
kdeenablefinal libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx motif mp3 mpeg ncurses network 
nls ogg opengl oss pam pcre pdflib perl png pppd pwdb python qt qt3 qt4 
quicktime readline reflection sdl session spell spl sse ssl theora tiff 
truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev usb vorbis xml xml2 xmms xorg xv 
xvid zlib elibc_glibc input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse 
input_devices_synaptics kernel_linux linguas_en userland_GNU video_cards_ati 
video_cards_radeon"
Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, 
PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS


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99% of politicians make the rest look bad.