Getting Atheros QCA6174 to work with kernel 4.1

Hi,

i have an Acer laptop with the infamous Atheros QCA6174 WiFi adapter. WiFi ist not working.

#lspci -k
07:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 32)
        Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. Device e09d
        Kernel driver in use: ath10k_pci
        Kernel modules: ath10k_pci
# uname -r
4.1.34-33-default
# dmesg | grep ath10k
    4.863938] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: pci irq msi-x interrupts 8 irq_mode 0 reset_mode 0
    5.052411] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/cal-pci-0000:07:00.0.bin failed with error -2
    7.175292] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: qca6174 hw3.2 (0x05030000, 0x00340aff) fw WLAN.RM.2.0-00180-QCARMSWPZ-1 api 4 htt 3.26 wmi 4 cal otp max_sta 32
    7.175296] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: debug 0 debugfs 0 tracing 0 dfs 0 testmode 0
   12.473463] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: failed to enable dynamic BW: -11
   15.473063] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: could not suspend target (-11)
   20.776021] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: failed to set vdev wmm params on vdev 0: -11
   23.775634] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: failed to set PS Mode 0 for vdev 0: -11
   23.775642] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: failed to setup powersave: -11
   26.775162] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: failed to set PS Mode 0 for vdev 0: -11
   26.775168] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: failed to setup powersave: -11
   29.850719] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0: failed to start hw scan: -11

What i already did is using the firmware from kvalo. Furtermore i set

ath10k_core skip_otp=y

as boot option. In the network manager the wifi symbol shows, but as seen in the dmesg output, the driver fails to load.
However, if i use the kernel 4.8, it works flawlessly. But the problem is, that with this kernel 4.8 bbswitch doesn’t work anymore, so my gpu would constantly turned on (which i want to avoid for obvious reasons).

Now there are two solutions: Getting the WiFi adapter to work with kernel 4.1, or getting bbswitch to work with kernel 4.8.
Do you have any suggestions?

Best,
Thomas

PS: Here: https://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/ATH10K_PCI.html it is stated, that the adapter should be supported in 4.1- am i missing something?

Might it be that the bumblebee kernel modules is missing with 4.8 ?
Which version of Bumblebee do you use ? Did you already try the version available at http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Bumblebee-Project:/ ?
This version uses dkms to build the kernelmodule. So it should provide the bumblebee kernelmodule for any kernel version.

Hi,

what i did is: installing kernel 4.8, then updating bumblebee (i installed it following the instructions on the wiki). Using optirun works. Only thing that is failing is bbswitch. /proc/acpi/bbswitch is not there. I also tried the most recent version of bbswitch from the KMP repo (is that 4.6? Before i had something like 4.21 from the OSS repo. Confused me a bit…), didn’t work either. i found it might be easier to get the WiFi adapter working than bumblebee/bbswitch. Correct me if i’m wrong.

Offtopic: As my problem affects WiFi and Bumblebee, i’m not sure if this thread is well placed in “Wireless”. If not, someone can move it :slight_smile:

See here for kernel:stable

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable:/KMP/standard/

Hi,-
i installed bbswitch from this repo (version 0.8-6). After that bbswitch was missing in /proc/acpi/. Though it is clearly installed.

Am Sun, 06 Nov 2016 20:06:01 GMT
schrieb tho ho <tho_ho@no-mx.forums.microfocus.com>:

> Hi,-
> i installed bbswitch from this repo (version 0.8-6). After that bbswitch
> was missing in /proc/acpi/. Though it is clearly installed.
>
>

Getting back to the original questions.

Maybe (just maybe) using a backported driver (= use code from Kernel > 4.1)
built for 4.1 might improve your wifi’s performance.

Actually, I do have some packages using code from 4.6.2 built for 4.1.X in my
Kernelmodules repo (called ath10k_backport-kmp-$FLAVOR).

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Akoellh:/Kernelmodules/

There is also a firmware package, but for other cards than yours.

AK


Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
(R.J. Hanlon)

Hi Akoellh,

using your ath10k_backport_firmware actually worked. I can now connect to my WiFi. However, the signal strengtht isn’t shown (it rather shows 0% for all networks). But that’s not so important for me, so i will leave it for now (unless you have a quick fix).

One last question: If i wanted to compile the firmware by myself, how would i do this? I guess using a make on the src wouldn’t be enough…

Thomas