Wifi connection : how to blacklist rtl8180 ? [SOLVED]

[melodie]

Hi,

I now need to use wifi for my connection. The card is a pcmcia Netgear that use netma521 with ndiswrapper. It provides a 70% level link, whereas rtl8180 provides between 9% and 59% in the better case, and not very stable.

I configured the connection with netma521/ndiswrapper, but after reboot I get rtl8180 back. I blacklisted it in the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist : same ; I also blacklisted it in the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-pclos at the next reboot, but the following reboot still has rtl8180 (and ndiswrapper not loaded).

Here are the outputs from console:

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# lspci
.....
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
.....
.....
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8180L 802.11b MAC (rev 20)
#


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# lsmod | grep ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper           177255  0
usbcore               117639  8 ndiswrapper,snd_usb_audio,snd_usbmidi_lib,uhci_hcd,ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd,usbhid


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# lsmod | grep pcmcia
pcmcia                 31690  0
pcmcia_rsrc             8880  1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core            10281  3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,pcmcia_rsrc


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# lsmod | grep yenta_socket
yenta_socket           19176  0
pcmcia_rsrc             8880  1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core            10281  3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,pcmcia_rsrc

(I have to load manually ndiswrapper only, yenta and pcmcia are automatically loaded).

The kernel is 2.6.38.7-pclos1.bfs.

What would you suggest ?

Thanks,
Mélodie

[wedgetail]

melodie

Show us your blakclist 

[melodie]

melodie

Show us your blakclist 

Hi wedgetail, here it is:

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$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
blacklist ssb

blacklist rtl8180
blacklist pcspkr
blacklist w35und


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$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-pclos
# disable PC speaker by default
# pcspkr is the standard driver, while snd-pcsp is the ALSA driver
blacklist rtl8180
blacklist pcspkr
blacklist snd-pcsp
blacklist snd-hda-codec-atihdmi
Thanks,
Mélodie

[Chomp]

Have you tried blacklisting rtl8180l (with the L on the end)?

[melodie]

Have you tried blacklisting rtl8180l (with the L on the end)?

Hi Chomp,

I haven't, but none of this name is loaded either...

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[root@localhost /]# lsmod | grep rtl8180l
[root@localhost /]#

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[root@localhost /]# lsmod | grep rtl8180*
rtl8180                26637  0
mac80211              189429  1 rtl8180
eeprom_93cx6            1052  1 rtl8180
cfg80211              126819  2 rtl8180,mac80211
[root@localhost /]#
Thanks.

[melodie]

Hi,

This is how I switch from rtl8180 (which is a very badly working connection) to netma521/ndiswrapper (which works in a very satisfying way):

[root@localhost /]# rmmod rtl8180
[root@localhost /]# modprobe ndiswrapper
[root@localhost /]# /etc/rc.d/init.d/network start
Démarrage de l'interface loopback :                             [  OK  ]
Configuration du domaine réglementaire du sans-fil              [  OK  ]
Activation de l'interface eth0 :  Sorry, there is already an instance of ifplugd for eth0 running.
                                                                [ÉCHEC ]
Activation de l'interface wlan1 :  Another wpa_supplicant instance is already running for device wlan1
Sorry, there is already an instance of ifplugd for wlan1 running.
                                                                [ÉCHEC ]
[root@localhost /]# /etc/rc.d/init.d/network start
Démarrage de l'interface loopback :                             [  OK  ]
Configuration du domaine réglementaire du sans-fil              [  OK  ]
Activation de l'interface eth0 :  Sorry, there is already an instance of ifplugd for eth0 running.
                                                                [ÉCHEC ]
Activation de l'interface wlan1 :  Another wpa_supplicant instance is already running for device wlan1
Sorry, there is already an instance of ifplugd for wlan1 running.
                                                                [ÉCHEC ]
[root@localhost /]# /etc/rc.d/init.d/network start
Démarrage de l'interface loopback :                             [  OK  ]
Configuration du domaine réglementaire du sans-fil              [  OK  ]
Activation de l'interface eth0 :  Sorry, there is already an instance of ifplugd for eth0 running.
                                                                [ÉCHEC ]
Activation de l'interface wlan1 :  Another wpa_supplicant instance is already running for device wlan1
Sorry, there is already an instance of ifplugd for wlan1 running.
                                                                [ÉCHEC ]
[root@localhost /]# /etc/rc.d/init.d/network start
Démarrage de l'interface loopback :                             [  OK  ]
Configuration du domaine réglementaire du sans-fil              [  OK  ]
Activation de l'interface eth0 :  Sorry, there is already an instance of ifplugd for eth0 running.
                                                                [ÉCHEC ]
Activation de l'interface wlan1 :  Another wpa_supplicant instance is already running for device wlan1
Sorry, there is already an instance of ifplugd for wlan1 running.
                                                                [ÉCHEC ]
[root@localhost /]# killall ifplugd
[root@localhost /]# /etc/rc.d/init.d/network start
Démarrage de l'interface loopback :                             [  OK  ]
Configuration du domaine réglementaire du sans-fil              [  OK  ]
Activation de l'interface eth0 :                                [  OK  ]
Activation de l'interface wlan1 :  Another wpa_supplicant instance is already running for device wlan1
                                                                [  OK  ]
[root@localhost /]#

Is there a possible fix to get this couple ndiswrapper/netma521 stable, please ?

Thanks,
Mélodie

[AS]

Hello Melodie,

did you check your /etc/modprobe.conf for lines related to rtl8180 references ?
Additionally, did you try to completely remove your network configuration, reboot and then install ndiswrapper upon new configuration ?
Have had a similar issue in the past, and if I remember correctly was solved as described above (remove conf, blacklist, install ndiswrapper).

AS

[melodie]

Hi AS,

This is my /etc/modprobe.conf at the moment:

# cat /etc/modprobe.conf
install scsi_hostadapter /sbin/modprobe ata_piix; /sbin/modprobe ahci; /bin/true
install usb-interface /sbin/modprobe ehci_hcd; /sbin/modprobe uhci_hcd; /sbin/modprobe ohci_hcd; /bin/true
options snd-ac97-codec power_save=1
alias eth0 r8169
alias wlan1 ndiswrapper
alias pci:v000010ECd00008180sv00001385sd00004700bc02sc00i00 ndiswrapper
options ipv6 disable=1

I can (re) install ndiswrapper, but if I remove configurations first I can't install anything. Would you suggest I try reverse side ? (I have tried removing all connections before re-configuring the whole thing, in steps 1 to 2... )

[melodie]

I have theses packages installed:

ndiswrapper-netma521
NdisWrapper Netgear MA521 Support files

ndiswrapper
NdisWrapper binary loader utility

[muungwana]

if "rtl8180" keep loading even after you blacklist it then you can try to remove it from the system.

open the terminal and then type "locate rtl8180".

The above command will show you where it is located on the kernel tree. Go there and move it out( to your home folder for example)

log in as root and then run this command and then reboot and see if it will continue to show up and cause problems.

depmod -a

ps:
it is always better to use "restart" than "start" option when starting services.

[melodie]

if "rtl8180" keep loading even after you blacklist it then you can try to remove it from the system.

open the terminal and then type "locate rtl8180".

The above command will show you where it is located on the kernel tree. Go there and move it out( to your home folder for example)

Hi muungwana,

I have moved it to itself (*-back)

log in as root and then run this command and then reboot and see if it will continue to show up and cause problems.

depmod -a

and ran depmod -a. Checked "man depmod", looked after into modules.dep file and didn't find rtl8180 in it anymore. I rebooted and at last ! I get the connection done by ndiswrapper ! After a few minutes the link level is of 76% !

ps:
it is always better to use "restart" than "start" option when starting services.

Well, if the service is already started, the command will fail, and if the service is not started, it will work. ^^
(And if you restart but the service was not started yet, you will get a "fail" on the "stop" part of the command).

Well, the problem is partly SOLVED. I mean, your suggests did work. Else : next kernel I will install, I'll have to move the driver again ; And I still don't know WHY the blacklist files don't work. Is there something wrong in the syntax ? Has something changed ?

And last : why is the free driver not working as well as the non free driver ? I would point to it to the attention of the developer of the rtl8180 driver, but atm I don't quite know how to find a direction.

Thanks for all,
Mélodie

[wedgetail]

melodie
Do I understand you have a pcmcia Netgear MA521, you use it for Windows XP etc and want to use it for Linux as well?
Linux uses RTL8180 and you get poor signal strength compared with netma521 running Windows?
Now you want to use Ndiswrapper and Netma521 driver for your Linux connection?

Ok if you are happy with what you have got so far, forget the following  

I am however curious why you get the poor performance with the rtl8180
Can you show

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lspci -vn     Edit: corrected this, as the following poster spotted my error  

which gets rather long and I only want the section for  

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03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8180L 802.11b MAC (rev 20)
Also the following

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[root@localhost ~]# modinfo rtl8180


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[root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/modprobe.preload

w

[djohnston]

Can you show

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lspcia -v  

Do you mean lspcmcia -v or lspci -v ?

(I think you mean the second one.)

[wedgetail]

djohnston
Thank you, much apreciated, I was dreaming away not really focussed. I have corrected the mistake, as you can see 
 

[djohnston]

I was dreaming away not really focussed.

Happens to me, too. I've done worse. You're welcome.