WI-FI Connection Problem

[Brianrh]

Hi all

New to PClinuxOS and fairly new to Linux and I am having problems with the Phoenix setup. The installation went well and the Ethernet works fine but I am having trouble with the wireless. It has identified the wireless card as Atheros AR242x / AR542x network adaptor but it won't pick up any access points and a USB wireless dongle has the same problem. Another strange occurance was that it worked fine on the LiveCD.

Has anyone any ideas what might be the problem be?

Thanks.

Brian

[melodie]

Hi,

Please type "lsmod" in a root console, hit "enter" and copy here the output of the console. (Between "code" tags please - the # sigh in the buttons of the editor).

[teabee]

Similar problem.... discovered that 'advanced setting' set to GB and a reboot fixed it. You never know....... 

[Brianrh]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I'm at work at the moment so can't try out the suggestions until tonight all being well. Lastnight I had a play round and thought I had tweaked the GB setting in the Advanced settings and thought I had rebooted but perhaps I didn't. I did try running the KDE version of PCLinuxOS but that had the same problem so it seems likely it is me and setting up problem.

The bizarre thing is over the last week I have been running a few LiveCD distros including two or three different flavours of PCLinuxOS I and I am sure that I tried using the internet with all of them with no problem. I had been running dual boot Linux Mint 12 & Windows XP on my HP laptop until I bit the bullet and went for PCLinux Xfce only.

Hopefully I will have time tonight to check my settings and try what you suggest teabee. If that doesn't I will follow melodie's suggestion and see what you folks make of this issue.

Thanks again.

Brian

[melodie]

Hi,

You may have one which has done something to the chipset (I don't remember how that works exactly but will try to explain). Once, someone came at home with a machine having another distro. The wifi was not working. I started a Live PCLinuxOS which gave a good result: the wifi was working out of the box. I though wao ! I'll suggest he switches for PCLinuxOS ! But after reboot, the other distro also was able to connect with wifi.

It might be just a clue.

Otherwise, I found a message identical to your's on the web, so I would like to see if there is a module which is likely to conflict with ath5k, in your system. (acer-*something)

[parnote]

Brianrh,

You may want to take a look at and try this: http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,71009.msg586279.html#msg586279

Hope it helps!

parnote

[Brianrh]

Hi parnote

I was busy tonight but my son who is more technically capable than me, took over and followed the instructions in your link. However when he got to installing dkms-madwifi and madwifi it came back with they were already installed. We were going to manually remove them and re-install but when we attempted to search for them it said package not found etc.

Any thoughts on this one?

Thanks agains.

Brian

[parnote]

Did you blacklist ath5k, ath_pci, or ath9k (whichever one your computer was using)?

[melodie]

Did you blacklist ath5k, ath_pci, or ath9k (whichever one your computer was using)?

Hi,
I said above to Brian : type "lsmod" in a root console. There might be a "acer-*something" conflicting. (saw the same model card on a forum somewhere else on the web... a taboo name here).

[Brianrh]

Did you blacklist ath5k, ath_pci, or ath9k (whichever one your computer was using)?

Hi,
I said above to Brian : type "lsmod" in a root console. There might be a "acer-*something" conflicting. (saw the same model card on a forum somewhere else on the web... a taboo name here).

Let me apologise to start with for being a bit vague but I am well out of my depth here and relying on my son when he has a few minutesto explain what you are suggesting and what we (he) are finding.

We haven't blacklisted ath5k, ath_pci, or ath9k bvut he thinks it is trying to use ath5k. It's strange that when we ran PCLinuxOS as a LiveCD the wireless worked okay but even that isn't happening now. I did have a dual boot set up of XP & Mint 12 but I assume a LiveCD running OS wouldn't  use any resource of anything else on the harddisk.

I will do what you suggested melodie and I can post it on here for your perusal. I have a nasty feeling that my wireless card may be defective, which would explain why nothing we have tried has helped, so I may go back to running a LiveCD of Mint 12 to see if it still works with that.

I appreciated all your help and I am sorry to not be coming back with any answers to help your diagnosis.

Brian

[Brianrh]

Hi, here is the result of the lsmod.

Module                  Size  Used by
snd_usb_audio          70631  0
snd_usbmidi_lib        15440  1 snd_usb_audio
snd_rawmidi            15287  1 snd_usbmidi_lib
ipv6                  266689  0
snd_hda_codec_conexant    35862  1
snd_hda_intel          19109  4
snd_hda_codec          66310  2 snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep               4820  2 snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_codec
snd_seq_dummy           1135  0
snd_seq_oss            25264  0
snd_seq_midi_event      4648  1 snd_seq_oss
arc4                    1126  2
snd_seq                42136  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
uvcvideo               55339  0
ecb                     1645  2
snd_seq_device          4457  4 snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss            33854  0
ath5k                 129378  0
ath                    11547  1 ath5k
snd_pcm                60446  4 snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              15383  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_mixer_oss          12981  2 snd_pcm_oss
zd1211rw               40132  0
mac80211              189461  2 ath5k,zd1211rw
videodev               56533  1 uvcvideo
snd                    43189  20 snd_usb_audio,snd_usbmidi_lib,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mixer_oss
sr_mod                 13510  0
cdrom                  31506  1 sr_mod
8139cp                 15831  0
8139too                17353  0
cfg80211              126787  4 ath5k,ath,zd1211rw,mac80211
soundcore               5025  2 snd
mii                     3382  2 8139cp,8139too
sg                     23483  0
snd_page_alloc          5877  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
iTCO_wdt                9145  0
iTCO_vendor_support     1585  1 iTCO_wdt
i2c_i801                7002  0
binfmt_misc             5850  1
yenta_socket           19176  0
pcmcia_rsrc             8880  1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core            10281  2 yenta_socket,pcmcia_rsrc
nvram                   4805  0
firewire_ohci          25329  0
firewire_sbp2          11541  0
firewire_core          43040  2 firewire_ohci,firewire_sbp2
crc_itu_t               1103  1 firewire_core
fuse                   59455  3
dm_mod                 58938  0
hp_wmi                  4717  0
sparse_keymap           2484  1 hp_wmi
rfkill                 12694  2 cfg80211,hp_wmi
joydev                  7663  0
processor              22399  1
evdev                   7275  18
wmi                     7495  1 hp_wmi
battery                 8843  0
ac                      2545  0
thermal                 6670  0
ide_pci_generic         2108  0
ide_gd_mod             21513  0
ide_core               80166  2 ide_pci_generic,ide_gd_mod
pata_acpi               2428  0
ata_generic             2527  0
ahci                   17997  0
libahci                16163  1 ahci
ata_piix               18602  3
libata                154591  5 pata_acpi,ata_generic,ahci,libahci,ata_piix
sd_mod                 31682  4
scsi_mod              150520  5 sr_mod,sg,firewire_sbp2,libata,sd_mod
crc_t10dif              1104  1 sd_mod
ext4                  312169  2
jbd2                   59959  1 ext4
crc16                   1099  1 ext4
uhci_hcd               19499  0
ohci_hcd               19566  0
ehci_hcd               35439  0
usbhid                 31267  0
hid                    63565  1 usbhid
usbcore               117639  9 snd_usb_audio,snd_usbmidi_lib,uvcvideo,zd1211rw,uhci_hcd,ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd,usbhid
i915                  436678  2
drm_kms_helper         24151  1 i915
drm                   146364  3 i915,drm_kms_helper
i2c_algo_bit            4568  1 i915
button                  4021  1 i915
i2c_core               16500  6 videodev,i2c_i801,i915,drm_kms_helper,drm,i2c_algo_bit
video                  10008  1 i915

Also when google-ing the part number it says the wireless card is a Atheros ar5bxb63 but on the HP service guide it says Atheros AR2425 and on PCOSLinux it says AR242x / AR542x.
We tried a USB wireless card and it worked when the Mini-PCI wireless card was out but when it was in the USB card did not work.
Thanks Brian

[Hootiegibbon]

Brianh

Sproggy sets up Phoenix to use madwifi - whatever else has appened you have ath5k loading in - this is whats killing our connection

You need one or the other  bot both

ath5k = wlan0 (native linux driver)

ath_pci = madwifi (alternative ) - can work betetr for some revisions of the card you have.

Check out the contents of /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

it should (in Phoenix) have the lines "blacklist ath5k" "blacklist ath9k"

also check /etc/modprobe.preload to ensure you have not added ath5k

reboot and it should be ok

Jase
 

[Brianrh]

Thanks guys for all your help in getting to the bottom of the problem. It was the wireless card that was causing the problem and I have ordered a new one and it is on the way.

Meanwhile I can boot up with my son's wireless dongle in a USB port and, with no other setting other than entering the encryption key the first time, Phoenix got on with it and I have working internet.

So it wasn't a problem with PCLinuxOS and it wasn't the best introduction to a new distro for me but it does show that PCLinuxOS can be relied on to work with most modern PC's with minor tweaking; it also has shown what a helpful community you have here. I feel rather privileged to be part of your communtiy although I fear I can't contribute much with my limited knowledge of Linux.

Thanks again.

Brian

[parnote]

Brianrh,

So glad to hear that you got your issues sorted!

parnote

[rubentje1991]

Thanks guys for all your help in getting to the bottom of the problem. It was the wireless card that was causing the problem and I have ordered a new one and it is on the way.

Meanwhile I can boot up with my son's wireless dongle in a USB port and, with no other setting other than entering the encryption key the first time, Phoenix got on with it and I have working internet.

So it wasn't a problem with PCLinuxOS and it wasn't the best introduction to a new distro for me but it does show that PCLinuxOS can be relied on to work with most modern PC's with minor tweaking; it also has shown what a helpful community you have here. I feel rather privileged to be part of your communtiy although I fear I can't contribute much with my limited knowledge of Linux.

Thanks again.

Brian

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