Hello, I’ve just installed suse 11.2 X86 a few days ago and for the most part everything is working ok except for my wireless adapter,single strength likes to sway drastically even though I’m always literally 4 feet from the router,then at random,disconnect from my wireless network,and finally upon returning from a suspend 9 out of 10 times I have to reboot for my wireless to start working again. I have downloaded and installed compat-wireless for my kernel and though this has improved the disconnection problem the other problems are still very persistent. Now my question is what have other users who have this card have done in order to fix these problems, as this is only my second linux/suse install and I was spoiled the first time around as everything worked “out of the box” I am pretty clueless about this. Thanks for all Help.
Hi
Fall back to the default ath9k driver and check that power management
is off (via gnome-terminal or console) run.
su -
iwconfig wlan0
iwconfig wlan0 power off
exit
See how that goes (I have an ASUS netbook using the ath9k)
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.27.42-0.1-default
up 9 days 3:02, 3 users, load average: 0.07, 0.04, 0.05
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - CUDA Driver Version: 190.18
just tested it and it looks like a no go still the same problems…just curious, what was that command supposed to do it didn’t print any output in Konsole…and also everytime I am plugged into an ethernet connection when I go suspend to ram I get the following message “Kernel Disabling IRQ #17” and am unable to use the ethernet connection unless I reboot. Don’t know much about this either but I only have a 2gig swap and 3gigs of ram is this adequate enough or maybe the cause of my problems…let me know what you guys think. Thanks
just tested it and it looks like a no go still the same problems…just curious, what was that command supposed to do it didn’t print any output in Konsole…and also everytime I am plugged into an ethernet connection when I go suspend to ram I get the following message “Kernel Disabling IRQ #17” and am unable to use the ethernet connection unless I reboot. Don’t know much about this either but I only have a 2gig swap and 3gigs of ram is this adequate enough or maybe the cause of my problems…let me know what you guys think. Thanks
Hi
So as in no go, no wireless? or no output from showing power off
rather than on?
iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"muppet-wifi"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=42/70 Signal level=-68 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.27.42-0.1-default
up 9 days 22:39, 3 users, load average: 0.07, 0.05, 0.01
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - CUDA Driver Version: 190.18
sorry should of clarified that but “no go” as in the same problems still exist with my wireless.
Hi
Can you go through the stickies in the wireless subforum and start a
new thread posting the requested information as more of the wireless
folks hang out there 
http://forums.opensuse.org/network-internet/wireless/
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.27.42-0.1-default
up 10 days 0:23, 3 users, load average: 0.08, 0.05, 0.03
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - CUDA Driver Version: 190.18
On disconnect, do this in a terminal window, copy and paste output here.
On suspend to RAM, the ethernet interface should be shutdown. That’s normal behaviour. Problem is that the driver does not get reloaded. Search the forum for ‘/etc/pm/sleep.d/’ and you should find posts that explain how to reenable the driver. out
About the RAM/swap: sufficient by far.
About the disconnecting phenomenon: I know people have that solved by installing kernel 2.6.32****
Thanks for the info will defiantly give it a try…the only thing I’m worried about is when updating your kernel isn’t it possible to lose support for certain drivers that might not have been implemented into the kernel? or am I wrong? Thanks
Don’t try this. I tried, it worked great for a couple of days, today I thoughtlessly upgraded to 2.6.33 from the same repo…
Result: NVIDIA driver won’t compile, wireless does not talk to networkmanager. Felt quite stupid, reverted to 2.6.31-8 and decided to wait and see. Bug reports have been filed, there’s other distro’s suffering from this.
In the meantime I have the impression that using Opera means a lot more dis- and reconnects…
Hi
Turning off power management on the device stopped the occasional
dropout, but maybe my device is different?
Atheros AR8121/AR8113/AR8114 PCI-E Ethernet Controller [1969:1026] (rev
b0)
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.27.42-0.1-default
up 12 days 10:47, 4 users, load average: 0.02, 0.07, 0.08
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - CUDA Driver Version: 190.18
Too late already did (updated 2.6.32) and am experiencing issues ATI Driver Issues - openSUSE Forums also this might be graphics card related but are you having problems with your suspend to ram on that kernel?
Yeah Knurpht Know what you mean I’m now experiencing the same problems gonna take your advice on this one…and if you will do me a favor and when there’s a fix documented post it on this thread thanks.
Nice…see that latest kernel update fixed the problem…at least with the disconnection problem signal strength is still not so good.
What I’m doing currently is a simple:
# rmmod ath9k
# modprobe ath9K
and then the things are starting to work much more better 
the same, before hibernate - “rmmod ath9k”
then after resume - “modprobe ath9k” - and don’t see any “IRQ disable” messages anymore
Rgds,
-Dimitri
I have the same issue with an Emachines E627 here is my lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (int gfx)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 0)
00:05.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 1)
00:11.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 SATA Controller [AHCI mode]
00:12.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:12.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 3c)
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 LPC host controller
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS780M/RS780MN [Radeon HD 3200 Graphics]
02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. Atheros AR8132 / L1c Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev c0)
Everything else seems to be working fine except for the wireless. By the way turning the power saving off seems to help the disconnecting but the signal still suffers.
Keep up the good work guys! and thanks for a great distro, is now a openSUSE user for life.
With a time observing this problem I’d say it’s completely random…
Regardless if power saving is on or off the disconnects continue and traffic drops too. However, disconnects are truly random: sometimes a whole day I may work without any one… Sometimes it disconnects 3 times within 10 minutes While I’m even not moving and just seating on the same place mostly every day
On the same time traffic drops are truly regular rather random: they are coming every 3 or 5 minutes and may be recognized ahead on the traffic monitoring graphs (ex. gkrellm, other) - for ex. speaking via Skype I know ahead the voice will disappear for 5-10 seconds and then will back again, then in 3-5min disappear again…
I’d say it’s very painful, may just hope it’ll be fixed with a time
I’m using Asus netbook with the same wireless chip:
02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
Rgds,
-Dimitri
Try the compat-wireless. There has been a lot of work on the Atheros drivers
since 2.6.31.
Upgrading to the kernel 2.6.31.12-0.1-default seems to fix at least partially all my problems! Well, I’m still doing rmmod/modprobe before/after hibernate (probably by habit now?) - but I may to speak via SIP or Skype now over a hour without having periodic voice dropping, and overall wireless activity looks much more stable. Oh, and the power management should be still set off to keep the wireless working correctly (iwconfig wlan0 power off).
Rgds,
-Dimitri