Madwifi D-Link DWA-643

maxosss · October 28, 2008, 8:05pm

Hello openSUSE community!

I’m a new openSUSE user. I’m trying to use my wireless adapter: D-Link DWA-643 on a Dell Inspiron 1501 (note that I managed to make it work under Ubuntu). I followed the installation process described at “Atheros madwifi - openSUSE” and everything went fine. But I can’t connect to any network with it. Here are some of my outputs:

lspci -nn:

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge [1002:5950] (rev 10)
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge [1002:5a3f]
00:05.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge [1002:5a37]
00:06.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge [1002:5a38]
00:12.0 SATA controller [0106]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA [1002:4380]
00:13.0 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0) [1002:4387]
00:13.1 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1) [1002:4388]
00:13.2 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2) [1002:4389]
00:13.3 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3) [1002:438a]
00:13.4 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4) [1002:438b]
00:13.5 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI) [1002:4386]
00:14.0 SMBus [0c05]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller [1002:4385] (rev 14)
00:14.1 IDE interface [0101]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE [1002:438c]
00:14.2 Audio device [0403]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia [1002:4383]
00:14.3 ISA bridge [0601]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge [1002:438d]
00:14.4 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge [1002:4384]
00:18.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration [1022:1100]
00:18.1 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map [1022:1101]
00:18.2 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller [1022:1102]
00:18.3 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control [1022:1103]
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RS485 [Radeon Xpress 1100 IGP] [1002:5975]
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5418 802.11abgn Wireless PCI Express Adapter [168c:0024] (rev 01)
05:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (rev 01)
08:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX [14e4:170c] (rev 02)
08:01.0 SD Host controller [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter [1180:0822] (rev 19)
08:01.1 System peripheral [0880]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller [1180:0843] (rev 01)

lsmod |grep ath:

ath_pci               118960  0 
wlan                  235504  1 ath_pci
ath_hal               235504  1 ath_pci
ath5k                 118532  0 
mac80211              220568  2 b43,ath5k

In the NetworkManager, I see only my ethernet card (Broadcom) and the onboard wireless (Broadcom too, as you can see in my lspci). Maybe the onboard wireless and the adapter are in conflict?

What am I supposed to do to connect to my network with my adapter?
Thank you very much!

swerdna · October 28, 2008, 10:40pm

Try this:
Go to Yast where you config the wireless card and “Edit” the settings → select “Hardware”. There’s a drop-down list “Module Name”. In there you might have to select ath_pci instead of ath5k.

Does that help?

If not then also blacklist ath5k.

Any better?

maxosss · October 29, 2008, 12:21am

No luck.
The drop-down list is empty. No ath_pci, not even ath5k.

Blacklisting doesn’t solve it either.
Any idea?
Thanks.

swerdna · October 29, 2008, 12:52am

Maybe the wireless interface isn’t configured properly. Let’s run some tests to add to the data you’ve already given us. Please open a console and enter su to get rootly powers, then enter these commands and post the results back here:

iwconfig
rpm -qa | grep madwifi
cat /etc/SuSE-release

maxosss · October 29, 2008, 1:19am

iwconfig:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:""  
          Mode:Managed  Channel:0  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Tx-Power=0 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B   
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

rpm -qa | grep madwifi:

madwifi-0.9.4-1
madwifi-kmp-default-0.9.4_2.6.25.5_2-1

cat /etc/SuSE-release:

openSUSE 11.0 (X86-64)
VERSION = 11.0

In the output of iwconfig, you can see that wlan0 is available, but in fact it is my onboard Broadcom wireless… (anyway, it should be ath0 that I need to see)
Here is a screenshot of my network manager (that’s in french but that gives you an idea ):
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/7286/captureparamtresrseauyaml4.png

Thank you for offering your time!

swerdna · October 29, 2008, 1:56am

run this command:

ifup ath0

look at what is says and also then see if iwconfig shows ath0

maxosss · October 29, 2008, 2:05am

ifup ath0:

Interface ath0 is not available

:X

swerdna · October 29, 2008, 2:18am

I assume you did this as root:

modprobe ath_pci

and then this {plus the response you should get}:

modprobe -l | grep ath_pci <--------- you do this
/lib/modules/2.6.25.18-0.2-pae/weak-updates/ath/ath_pci.ko <------ returns similar to mine

yes??

maxosss · October 29, 2008, 2:40am

As root I did modprobe ath_pci, but before I didn’t do modprobe -l | grep ath_pci.
I just did it this time and the return was:

/lib/modules/2.6.25.18-0.2-default/weak-updates/ath/ath_pci.ko

Still nothing in iwconfig or Network Manager or ifup ath0.

swerdna · October 29, 2008, 5:44am

Just to see if you can get it going try this:
Go to Yast network card configurator and set it to not use network manager but to use “traditional method with ifup”. Set the wlan0 card to start “never” rather than “on boot”. The reboot and goto Yast and add/configure the madwifi card following this how to (screenshots therein):
Madwifi or Ndiswrapper Wireless Network Drivers - Suse/openSUSE 10, 11 - LAN & Internet access

You should be able to add an ath0. If it proceeds, remember to select the module ath_pci under “Hardware”.

deltaflyer44 · October 29, 2008, 8:52am

I believe it could be a conflict, according to this

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5418 802.11abgn Wireless PCI Express Adapter [168c:0024] (rev 01)
05:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (rev 01)
You have two wireless devices in your pc/laptop & the more active is the broadcom,which is over-riding the atheros chipset. To resolve this, you need to remove/disable one of the devices

Andy

maxosss · October 30, 2008, 12:32am

OK, I did this.

Too bad, no “ath0” anywhere.

Any idea? We have the confimation madwifi is correctly installed, but it’s not showing up in the network manager…

swerdna · October 30, 2008, 4:56am

Take the advice of deltaflyer44. Can you disable it in the bios?