Atheros card problem

English Network/Internet
1

Just installed Opensuse 11.4 in my home laptop - from Ubuntu 11.4
On the live cd my wirelless card worked fine -
after installation, nothing -
here are some of the details
/sbin/lspci gives:


0:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation Device 075e (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] SMBus (rev a1)
00:01.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Co-Processor (rev a2)
00:01.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory Controller (rev a1)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a1)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a1)
00:04.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a1)
00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a1)
00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP72XE/MCP72P/MCP78U/MCP78S High Definition Audio (rev a1)
00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Bridge (rev a1)
00:09.0 SATA controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0ad5 (rev a2)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:13.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Bridge (rev a1)
00:14.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Bridge (rev a1)
00:15.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Bridge (rev a1)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Processor HyperTransport Configuration (rev 40)
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Processor Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Processor DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Processor Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Processor Link Control
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C77 [GeForce 9100M G] (rev a2)
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5764M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 10)
0b:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

and, /usr/sbin/iwconfig gives:


lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off

any help will be appreciated

2

Firmware?

3

is that what you are looking for?


# winfo --wlan --short
network:                                                        
  wlan0                AMBIT Microsystem AR5BXB63 802.11bg NIC
4

Show us the output of

dmesg | grep firmware
5

weird, this laptop gives nothing:
:~ # dmesg | grep firmware
:~ #

while I tried it on my main machine, that runs Opensuse 11.4 for quite a while now, and I get an output -
ideas?

6

If you haven’t installed rfkill already, do so

zypper in rfkill

then issue

rfkill list

Anything soft/hard blocked?

rfkill unblock all

Are you managing your wireless device with network manager?

7

added rfkill
the response to rfkill list::


0: phy0: Wireless LAN
           Soft blocked: no
           Hard blocked: no

using the unblock all command didn’t help

8

actually after turning on and off the pc (after installing rfkill) I can see that now
Hard blocked: yes

with rfkill command I can only switch on/off the soft block

also, by running

dmesg | grep wlan0

I get

   53.177052] ADDRCONF (NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

and yes, I am using the network manager

9

Do you have a switch somewhere? Laptop model?

10

It is a laptop, Acer aspire 4530 -
there is not a switch, only a button on the sides of the keyboard - when I hit that it only switches the soft block on and off
here is a series of outputs -
right after boot

dimitris-portable:~ # rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

hitting the button once

dimitris-portable:~ # rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no

hitting the button for a second time

dimitris-portable:~ # rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes

it is interesting that before doing anything Hard blocked appears as no, but after playing with the button becomes yes
ideas?

11

Interesting. It does seem to be an issue with some laptop hardware Have a read of this Ubuntu thread, from post #10 onwards. The advice posted there may be relevant to you. When I google ‘acer 4530 wireless ath5k’ (and similar), there seems to be a lot of results that come back discussing problems with this hardware.

12

I reinstalled the OS, directly from the cd - without doing the live installation I previously did - and now the network manager is working fine…
not sure why or what is the problem,
but for now my system is working

13

On 10/27/2011 11:16 PM, darlac wrote:
>
> actually after turning on and off the pc (after installing rfkill) I can
> see that now
> Hard blocked: yes
>
> with rfkill command I can only switch on/off the soft block

A hard block means that your wireless switch is off. Rfkill cannot change that -
you need to change the switch.

14

UPDATE - it seems that I still have problems - the wireless card does not work randomly; if it starts fine, then it works no problems but sometimes the wireless card is not active when I boot - then only way I can make it work is by rebooting (sometimes once, sometimes several times) -
not sure what is the source of the problem