Realtek RTL-8185 = OS lock up. Is there a fix?

[GoodJava]

Have there been any solutions to getting a Realtek RTL-8185 Wireless card working?

Background.

I have been trying to reinstall Linux in general, using the latest KDE/Kernal etc. using Kubuntu, Fedora and SuSE 11.1
ALL of them will not connect to the internet using my AirLink AWLH3028 PCI wireless card. In order to even install SuSE 11.1 I had to physically remove my Wireless PCI card otherwise the installer would lockup in the Automatic Configuration step. If I disabled Automatic Configuration the installer would still lockup. The only solution was to install w/o the card.

So with a fresh SuSE 11.1/KDE install I inserted my card and started with YaST but when I clicked on the Network Devices->Network Settings the computer completely locked up. I had to do a hard reboot of the machine. Here is the lspci -v for the wireless card.

02:06.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 20)
Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 22
I/O ports at a400 [size=256]
Memory at fb006000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Kernel driver in use: rtl8180
Kernel modules: rtl8180

I then installed ndiswrapper and tools and installed the Windows driver that came with my card. This driver worked fine in Ubuntu 8.

linux-z4yl:/home/david # ndiswrapper -l
net8185 : driver installed
device (10EC:8185) present (alternate driver: rtl8180)

After rebooting the machine and giving YaST another go the machine still locks up. I also noted that even after installing the Windows driver with ndiswrapper if I do another lspci the card still shows the rtl8180 kernel driver in use. Is this an issue?

So I'm not sure where to go from here. I'm ready to just ditch the AirLink card if someone can recommend a cheap replacement card that they have had success with.

Thanks!
David

[GoodJava]

Oh and I forgot to mention I also ran

modprobe ndiswrapper

Followed with a

rcnetwork restart

Any attempt to run YaST->Network Devices->Network Settings will cause the entire OS to lock during the "Initializing Network configuration/Read driver information" step.

Sigh....

[Prexy]

I have exactly the same issue. It was so bad, I assumed it was hardware related and not driver related. However, I remember this chipset worked in opensuse up to 11.0. Well, maybe 10.3, but it worked.

[GoodJava]

Yep. My "solution" was to roll back to an older version...

[anonimoculto]

I have the same card here, and it works when I've configured both, NetworkManager and tradicional metod, correctly. Trying to configure only via traditional metod does not result success (I could not see or detect my network, named AMAZONIA). To solve the problem, do the following: open yast, configure the wireless network card in traditional way including the right network passwd), close the yast. The system will update the data, but network will probably not work (thats the problem). Open yast again, go in network devices, select network configuration, and in general options select networkmanager insted traditional way. Now, in KDE (I havent tried with gnome, but I suppose it will work too), configure the wireless device after clicking in KNetworkManager icon beside clock in task bar. I have tried 2 times to reach the network correctly configured, since in first case the network passwd was completely wrong ( I never saw it before so fath), and after my first configuration, the same ugly passwd seems to persists. After second configuration, the network works. I have returnet to traditional way in yast, and it works than, too. I happe this solve your problems too.. Tanks.

[anonimoculto]

To complemet, here is my lspci -v. I beg your pardon about my english too, but I speak Portuguese as native language.

04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 20)
Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 20
I/O ports at d000 [size=256]
Memory at e7000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Kernel driver in use: rtl8180
Kernel modules: rtl8180