No wireless extensions

English Network/Internet
#1

Hello,

  • I am on OpenSUSE 11.3.
  • My wireless internet used to work fine on this machine.
  • Something went wrong in my absence - I returned to find my machine in runlevel 3, since which I have not been able to connect wirelessly to any network.
  • I can, however, connect via an ethernet cable.
  • ‘/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
          Power Management:off
          
vboxnet0  no wireless extensions.
  • ‘/usr/sbin/iwlist scan’ gives:
lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0      Interface doesn't support scanning.

wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down

vboxnet0  Interface doesn't support scanning.

So it would seem like just a trivial configuration problem, but I’ve been unable to fix it (mainly because I’m a novice). If anyone can resolve this for me then I would be extremely grateful.

Kind regards.

#2

Please paste the results of lspci and lsmod.

#3

As requested. Thank you.

$ /sbin/lspci

00:00.0 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)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] IDE (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 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] SATA Controller (non-AHCI mode) (rev a2)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP77 Ethernet (rev a2)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:14.0 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 8200M G] (rev a2)
07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

$ /sbin/lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by
nfs                   313930  0 
lockd                  72230  1 nfs
fscache                47927  1 nfs
nfs_acl                 2635  1 nfs                                                          
auth_rpcgss            37927  1 nfs                                                          
sunrpc                214574  5 nfs,lockd,nfs_acl,auth_rpcgss                                
ip6t_LOG                5150  6                                                              
xt_tcpudp               2107  2                                                              
xt_pkttype               912  3                                                              
ipt_LOG                 5119  6                                                              
xt_limit                1705  12 
af_packet              19512  2 
snd_pcm_oss            47613  0 
snd_mixer_oss          16751  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq                57343  0 
snd_seq_device          6566  1 snd_seq
edd                     8720  0 
vboxnetadp              7603  0 
vboxnetflt             21012  0 
vboxdrv               229786  2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt
nvidia              10217544  40 
cpufreq_conservative    10064  0 
cpufreq_userspace       2583  0 
cpufreq_powersave        914  0 
powernow_k8            18707  0 
mperf                   1255  1 powernow_k8
ip6t_REJECT             4311  3 
nf_conntrack_ipv6      18225  4 
ip6table_raw            1187  1 
xt_NOTRACK               816  4 
ipt_REJECT              2152  3 
xt_state                1162  8 
iptable_raw             1246  1 
iptable_filter          1418  1 
ip6table_mangle         1588  0 
nf_conntrack_netbios_ns     1382  0 
nf_conntrack_ipv4       8691  4 
nf_conntrack           75596  5 nf_conntrack_ipv6,xt_NOTRACK,xt_state,nf_conntrack_netbios_ns,nf_conntrack_ipv4
nf_defrag_ipv4          1201  1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
ip_tables              12172  2 iptable_raw,iptable_filter
ip6table_filter         1359  1 
ip6_tables             13508  4 ip6t_LOG,ip6table_raw,ip6table_mangle,ip6table_filter
x_tables               17098  16 ip6t_LOG,xt_tcpudp,xt_pkttype,ipt_LOG,xt_limit,ip6t_REJECT,ip6table_raw,xt_NOTRACK,ipt_REJECT,xt_state,iptable_raw,iptable_filter,ip6table_mangle,ip_tables,ip6table_filter,ip6_tables
fuse                   65789  1 
loop                   14694  0 
dm_mod                 73457  0 
arc4                    1281  2 
ecb                     1967  2 
snd_hda_codec_nvhdmi    13943  1 
snd_hda_codec_conexant    35680  1 
snd_hda_intel          24790  2 
ath5k                 134888  0 
snd_hda_codec          98443  3 snd_hda_codec_nvhdmi,snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep               6164  1 snd_hda_codec
uvcvideo               60875  0 
mac80211              247799  1 ath5k
snd_pcm                87978  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
videodev               39422  1 uvcvideo
v4l1_compat            14917  2 uvcvideo,videodev
shpchp                 30104  0 
snd_timer              21669  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
ath                     8743  1 ath5k
sr_mod                 14671  0 
hp_wmi                  5882  0 
ac                      3083  0 
battery                 9730  0 
video                  21205  0 
snd                    65724  15 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_hda_codec_nvhdmi,snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore               7379  1 snd
cdrom                  38085  1 sr_mod
cfg80211              155959  3 ath5k,mac80211,ath
rfkill                 17298  2 hp_wmi,cfg80211
joydev                  9354  0 
sg                     27872  0 
serio_raw               4394  0 
pcspkr                  1614  0 
wmi                     7467  1 hp_wmi
k10temp                 2723  0 
snd_page_alloc          8041  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
pci_hotplug            28749  1 shpchp
button                  5449  0 
forcedeth              53511  0 
i2c_nforce2             6485  0 
ext4                  365319  2 
jbd2                   83070  1 ext4
crc16                   1403  1 ext4
fan                     3539  0 
processor              40729  1 powernow_k8
ata_generic             2711  0 
pata_amd                9246  0 
thermal                17357  0 
thermal_sys            14678  4 video,fan,processor,thermal
#4

Your wireless is found here;

07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

This ath5k looks like the driver. ath5k - Linux Wireless
This seems to be the core driver for your wirreless; ath

How have you attempted to set this up? Have you used YaST? or something else?
Try this;

modprobe ath5k
sudo ip link set wlan%d up
sudo iwconfig wlan%d essid any
# Make sure you get auth'd and then assoc'd
# Then either set an IP manually or get it via DHCP
ping gw

That was taken from ath5k - Linux Wireless might want to look at that page.

#5

Do you have a switch that enables/disables WiFi? Or do you have an Fn key combination for that?

What’s the output from: /usr/sbin/rfkill list
(you might need to install the “rfkill” command).

#6

Problem solved!

I ran

$ /usr/sbin/rfkill list

and it said that my wireless was both ‘soft blocked’ and ‘hard blocked’. So I ran

$ /usr/sbin/rfkill unblock all

which sorted that. I then ran

$ /usr/sbin/iwlist scan

which now listed the wireless network I wanted to connect to. So I connected to it via iwconfig (which I found required a reboot), and I am now posting via the ether!

Thank you both for your time, I have been trying to fix this for weeks.