Atheros Ar5007eg Problem

Hi,
this is a bit of a strange one. I purchased a laptop (an Acer Aspire 4720z) to give to a student as a gift, and have loaded Opensuse 10.3 on it as a dual boot with windows vista. Installation went great, and I have been able to work out all the problems with hardware one by one by researching them on the suse forum.

I found that the wireless card was an Atheros ar5007eg, recognized as such in Vista. In opensuse, it was recognized as an ar5006eg. I couldn't get the wireless to work with the madwifi rpms in the Opensuse repos, nor with ndiswrapper. But no problem, the very knowledgeable OldCPU provided the answer in this thread:

http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?showtopic=50034

I downloaded the madwifi driver and madwifi kmp rpms from the repo he listed, and "Ouala," it works! I didn't even have to apply the patch that he mentioned, it was already included in the current madwifi driver.

However, now each time I boot the laptop, I can't get the wireless to work until I go into Yast > Network Devices. I don't have to do any configuring, I just have to open Yast > Network Devices up, see that everything is there (both the ethernet and wireless cards) and click finish, and then it works. I can then connect using wireless.

Can anyone clue me in to what is happening and how to fix this so that the step of going into yast is eliminated after I boot the laptop? I am aiming to do a normal bootup, click on knetwork manager, select the network and connect, without having to go into Yast.

Thanks

each time I boot the laptop, I can't get the wireless to work until I go into Yast > Network Devices. I don't have to do any configuring, I just have to open Yast > Network Devices up, see that everything is there (both the ethernet and wireless cards) and click finish, and then it works. I can then connect using wireless.[/b]

Not sure if I should reply to this thread, as my knowledge about wireless is woefully weak.

But if this happened to me, I would check that the madwifi module is loaded before going to YaST, and then check to see if it is loaded after going to YaST.

So after booting, open a konsole/xterm and type:
<span style="font-family:Courier New">lsmod > after-yast-txt</span>

Now compare the contents of "before-yast.txt" to "after-yast.txt". Any differences in loaded kernel modules?

Hi OldCPU,

I tried the bash commands that you suggested but I couldn't produce any output from them. I restarted the laptop and before I went to yast I opened a console and typed in "lsmod". I then opened yast and after getting the wireless running I again typed in lsmod in terminal. I compared the outputs and they seem the same, and it seems that ath_pci is loaded at boot.

I plan on shipping the laptop off tomorrow, as I am leaving on a two week business trip early next week and won't have the opportunity to do it then. I will explain what I have found regarding the wireless to the new owner, and if she wants to work this out, she can join the forum and deal with it herself.

Many thanks for your help.

I compared the outputs and they seem the same, and it seems that ath_pci is loaded at boot.[/b]

If ath_pci is the same at both boot (when the wireless does not work) and after going to YaST (when wireless works), then I would investigate other possibilities. Try to find a command line way to:
a. reload ath_pci module at boot (ie a second time) without going to YaST, and check if that works, .... if not then,
b. find a command line way to check your wireless config settings at boot (when wireless doesn't work) and check again (from command line) after running YaST when wireless works. Compare the two. ie in this second case, you are looking for differences.

As noted above, wireless is not my forte, ... my wife's PC has wireless, and the family laptop has wireless, neither of which I have access to currently, so I can't surf and test such commands on a PC. Hence you or your friend will need to do that.

I suspect this is readily solvable.

Hi, cruising by:

That rings a bell. To get my ndiswrapper up it won't come by itself I have to put these lines in /etc/init.d/boot.local:

modprobe ndiswrapper
ifup wlan0[/b]

So what's the atheros version of that, is it like this:

modprobe ath_pci
ifup ath0[/b]

Over to you again oldcpu

Swerdna

Hi OldCPU and Swerdna,
thanks for the valiant efforts. I am just getting ready to pack the computer for shipment, and tried your suggestions out to see if they worked. I had previously gone to yast to add ath_pci to the kernel modules loaded at boot, but it didn't help. I tried to modify the /etc/init.d/boot.local file this morning, but that didn't work, in fact I couldn't connect until I went back and restored the file to its original configuration. For whatever reason, I found that the wireless won't work until the Opensuse updater is finished. If I had the laptop in hand I would work on that some more.

The wireless does work, even if it is a little inconvenient. I am out of time, so I want to thank you both for the good ideas you passed along. Especially, for OldCPU's research in the other thread that I referenced to find the current driver and Kmp, as I wouldn't have gotten the wireless to work without it.