I have a desktop computer and a laptop - both running OpenSUSE 12.2. My Alfa AWUS036H USB WiFi NIC works fine on the laptop but not on the desktop computer.
The NIC was detected as soon as I plugged it into the laptop, the system recognized it as a Realtek RTL8187L chipset, and it works great. However, on the desktop computer the Alfa card does not initialize.
This Wi-Fi NIC worked fine on the desktop computer under OpenSUSE 12.1, but after I did a clean installation of 12.2, I am unable to get it to work.
The NIC does not show up in Yast | Hardware Information. If I open Networkmanager, I can see the WLAN interface appear and disappear repeatedly if I have the NIC plugged in.
I tried downloading and installing a driver from Realtek (rtl8187L_linux_1041[1].0209.2012), but it locked my system up every time and I used modprobe -r to remove it.
I’m not sure why this NIC was plug & play on one OpenSUSE 12.2 system, but not on another. What can I do next to troubleshoot this? Thank you.
On 11/12/2012 09:36 AM, jasoncoxTX wrote:
>
> I have a desktop computer and a laptop - both running OpenSUSE 12.2. My
> Alfa AWUS036H USB WiFi NIC works fine on the laptop but not on the
> desktop computer.
>
> The NIC was detected as soon as I plugged it into the laptop, the
> system recognized it as a Realtek RTL8187L chipset, and it works great.
> However, on the desktop computer the Alfa card does not initialize.
>
> This Wi-Fi NIC worked fine on the desktop computer under OpenSUSE 12.1,
> but after I did a clean installation of 12.2, I am unable to get it to
> work.
>
> The NIC does not show up in Yast | Hardware Information. If I open
> Networkmanager, I can see the WLAN interface appear and disappear
> repeatedly if I have the NIC plugged in.
>
> I tried downloading and installing a driver from Realtek
> (rtl8187L_linux_1041[1].0209.2012), but it locked my system up every
> time and I used modprobe -r to remove it.
>
> I’m not sure why this NIC was plug & play on one OpenSUSE 12.2 system,
> but not on another. What can I do next to troubleshoot this? Thank
> you.
I do not know either. That chip is plug-and-play. The vendor drivers are
generally not written for 64-bit operation.
Please provide the output from the following commands on the desktop under 12.2:
lsusb
lsmod | grep rtl
Thank you, lwfinger. Here is the output from both of those commands:
lsusb:
Bus 001 Device 033: ID 0bda:8187 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187 Wireless Adapter
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c03d Logitech, Inc. M-BT96a Pilot Optical Mouse
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 045e:00db Microsoft Corp. Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 V1.0
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
lsmod | grep rtl:
|rtl8187 61088 0
|
mac80211 555559 1 rtl8187
cfg80211 208339 2 rtl8187,mac80211
eeprom_93cx6 13302 1 rtl8187
|
On 11/12/2012 08:26 PM, jasoncoxTX wrote:
OK, the driver is loaded. What was the basis for your statement that the device
did not initialize?
What is the output of the following?
sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan
/usr/sbin/iwconfig
/sbin/ifconfig
When I said the NIC doesn’t initialize I meant that when I plug it in, the indicator light doesn’t start flashing the way it does when I connect it to the other computer on which the NIC functions normally.
Here are the results from the commands. I noticed that it says “Failed to read scan data: no such device” for wlan0 when I ran iwlist scan. On iwconfig and ifconfig, it does recognize wlan0.
sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan
eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.
lo Interface doesn't support scanning.
wlan0 Failed to read scan data : No such device
/usr/sbin/iwconfig
eth0 no wireless extensions.
lo no wireless extensions.
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
/sbin/ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:E0:61:0F:FE:EB UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:17
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:193 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:193 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:16214 (15.8 Kb) TX bytes:16214 (15.8 Kb)
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:C0:CA:66:36:2A
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
It ended up being a faulty USB cable. Not sure why my laptop tolerated the cable when the desktop didn’t, but the old cable is now in the trash and the NIC is working great with a different cable. Thanks for your help.
On 11/12/2012 10:36 PM, jasoncoxTX wrote:
>
> It ended up being a faulty USB cable. Not sure why my laptop tolerated
> the cable when the desktop didn’t, but the old cable is now in the trash
> and the NIC is working great with a different cable. Thanks for your
> help.
Glad to be able to help. Too bad I didn’t remember that the Alfa device uses a
cable.