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Which is correct regarding Atheros chipset information, dmesg or lshw?

Asked by rusivi2

1) What I am trying to achieve is find out which Atheros chipset product line I have for a Toshiba Satellite L305D-S5934 laptop via dmesg and lshw.

2/3) The steps I take are open a terminal:

dmesg | grep Atheros

[ 10.131682] ath5k phy0: Atheros AR2425 chip found

However, the output for lshw is:

*-network
                description: Wireless interface
                product: AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter
                vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.

4) What I think should happen is that both command should present the same, correct chipset product line. Which is correct (more likely correct?!) dmesg or lshw?

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Mark Rijckenberg (markrijckenberg) said : 		#1

I think the only way to determine the correct chipset is by running this command (for Wireless PCI adapters):

lspci -nn

which is LSPCI -NN in small letters

For wireless USB adapters the right command is:

lsusb

which is LSUSB in small letters

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rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#2

Mark, thank you for your suggestion. I performed your recommendation with the results below:

lspci -nn | grep Atheros
05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:001c] (rev 01)

Attempting to settle this, I called Toshiba technical support twice, the first time the rep told me it was proprietary information then hungup on me :(, the second rep said to type msinfo32 at a Windows command prompt, google it, and finally if I wanted more information to call Atheros.....

I scoured the Atheros website, and after reading the product bulletin for AR5001:

http://www.atheros.com/pt/bulletins/AR5001X+Bulletin.pdf

and AR2425:

http://atheros.com/pt/bulletins/AR5007EGBulletin.pdf

what I think is likely the case is that the system architecture is the AR5001, and the radio is the AR2425.

While confusing at first it makes good business sense (use a newer version radio with a prior product line architecture).

So in summation, it seems dmesg queries the radio, while lshw & lspci poll system architecture.