Toshiba wireless troubleshooting

English Network/Internet
#1

I am very new to this, just enough to be dangerous.

I have a newer 64bit Toshiba with a built-in wireless card. I have the “Linux” driver for it downloaded as a tarball from the Realtek website. I don’t know how to compile tarballs. Maybe compiling the venders tarball WIFI driver isn’t going to fix my issue. I’m not sure.

I’ve been going through the preliminary wifi stickies and this is what I’ve found so
far:

II. What device do you have? YaST => Hardware => Hardware Information. In the resulting display, check for an entry named “Wireless LAN”. Report its presence/absence in your report.

No wireless device reported.

If the “Wireless LAN” entry is not found, you then need to open either the PCI or USB items to find your wireless device…Scroll through the entries to find the one that starts with “UDI:” and post it. This line contains the PCI or USB ID that determines which driver is needed for the device.

No reference to UDI or a wiireless card, only my ethernet controller.

(2) Determine what device you have.

I ran:

/sbin/lspci
06:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE
802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)

I also ran:

/sbin/lspci -n
00:00.0 0600: 8086:0044 (rev 02)
00:02.0 0300: 8086:0046 (rev 02)
00:16.0 0780: 8086:3b64 (rev 06)
00:1a.0 0c03: 8086:3b3c (rev 05)
00:1b.0 0403: 8086:3b56 (rev 05)
00:1c.0 0604: 8086:3b42 (rev 05)
00:1c.1 0604: 8086:3b44 (rev 05)
00:1d.0 0c03: 8086:3b34 (rev 05)
00:1e.0 0604: 8086:2448 (rev a5)
00:1f.0 0601: 8086:3b09 (rev 05)
00:1f.2 0106: 8086:3b29 (rev 05)
00:1f.3 0c05: 8086:3b30 (rev 05)
00:1f.6 1180: 8086:3b32 (rev 05)
01:00.0 0200: 10ec:8136 (rev 05)
06:00.0 0280: 10ec:8176 (rev 01)

ff:00.0 0600: 8086:2c62 (rev 05)
ff:00.1 0600: 8086:2d01 (rev 05)
ff:02.0 0600: 8086:2d10 (rev 05)
ff:02.1 0600: 8086:2d11 (rev 05)
ff:02.2 0600: 8086:2d12 (rev 05)
ff:02.3 0600: 8086:2d13 (rev 05)

I assume the entry I’ve marked in red is my adapter because I believe it references Bus 6 and rev 01.

dmesg | less

I’ve ran this command thrice and went through all 867 lines. I could not find any reference to a WIFI card. I found a few entries to the 10ec vendor code but not the 8176 product ID code.

I’m not sure how to proceed, any help is appreciated. :slight_smile:

#2

Your device is fully supported starting with kernel 2.6.38, but not in the
standard kernel in openSUSE 11.4.

Your two options are to install a 2.6.38 kernel, or the compat-wireless package
for your kernel. As the second is easier, I will assume that is what you want to do.

Firstly, use YaST => Software Repositories to add the repository at
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/driver:/wireless/openSUSE_11.4/.

I guessed at the 11.4 as you failed to say which version you are running. Adjust
the URL if that is not correct. After the repo is added, then use YaST =>
Software Management to install the compat-wireless-kmp-xxxx package where xxxx
matches your installed kernel (default or desktop), and the kernel-firmware
package. Once those two packages are installed, then you can either reboot or
issue the command ‘sudo /sbin/modprobe -r rtl8192ce’. At that point, there will
be a wlan0 that can be configured. Yes I know, you have an RTL8188CE, but
rtl8192ce is the driver for RTL8192CE/RTL8188CE.

#3

Thank you lwfinger.

You are right, I am using 11.4.
I’ve installed the suggested repository along with the packages. my Kernal is 2.6.37.1-1.2 desktop x86_64. My 2.6.37 was automatically selected so I didn’t make any changes before installing the packages.

I rebooted.

I can right click the network icon in the taskbar to invoke a menu and choose: WLAN Interface > Connect to other Network with WLAN Interface…> and click “Connect”.

“Add network connection” window opens and I type in the name of my wireless connection. I selected “connect automatically”.
I select the wireless tab and click the “Scan” button next to the SSID field hoping my connection will be found.

The available networks window appears but no networks are found.

I’ve verified my WLAN connection is up and running as I readily connect using my iPhone.

Any more suggestions? I am eternally grateful.

#4

On 04/01/2011 11:06 AM, SteveFury61 wrote:
>
> Any more suggestions? I am eternally grateful.

What does ‘sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan’ show? If you don’t get any networks, then
check the output of smesg.

#5

Just a remark: most probably the output of dmesg - print or control the kernel ring buffer - was meant.

dmesg

Regards
Martin
(pistazienfresser)

#6

~> sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan
lo Interface doesn’t support scanning.

eth0 Interface doesn’t support scanning.

wlan0 Interface doesn’t support scanning : Network is down

~> dmesg
…(Snip)…
8.609153] rtlwifi: wireless switch is off

This is likely my problem- however I’m not sure how to switch it on. If I click the network connection icon in the taskbar, the “Enable wireless” already has a check mark along with “Enable networking”.

#7

On 04/01/2011 03:06 PM, SteveFury61 wrote:
>
>> ~> sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan
>> lo Interface doesn’t support scanning.
>>
>> eth0 Interface doesn’t support scanning.
>>
>> wlan0 Interface doesn’t support scanning : Network is down
>>
>
>> ~> dmesg
>> …(Snip)…
>> 8.609153] rtlwifi: wireless switch is off

That seems likely. If the wifi is blocked by the rfkill switch, then you cannot
connect. As I have never had a Toshiba laptop, I cannot help you. If your
machine does not have a slide switch for the wireless, then some Fn key will
likely be involved and is likely controlled with some wmi routine. The most
likely thing to try is ‘sudo /sbin/modprobe toshiba-acpi’.

#8

I did:

~> sudo /sbin/modprobe toshiba-acpi
FATAL: Error inserting toshiba_acpi (/lib/modules/2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/toshiba_acpi.ko): No such device

Hmm…
My notebook has a wifi soft switch accessible by pressing FN(Function key) +F8, which I believe uses a window$ based program for control. There is no hardware switch. I’ve checked my BIOS setup and the only reference to WIFI is enable/disable in which I found it already enabled.

I guess this is the end of the road with this.

I’d like to thank you for the time spent helping me with this trouble, if anything I’ve learned some things. :slight_smile:

#9

On 04/01/2011 07:36 PM, SteveFury61 wrote:
>
> I did:
>
>> ~> sudo /sbin/modprobe toshiba-acpi
>> FATAL: Error inserting toshiba_acpi
>> (/lib/modules/2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/toshiba_acpi.ko):
>> No such device
>>
>
> Hmm…
> My notebook has a wifi soft switch accessible by pressing FN(Function
> key) +F8, which I believe uses a window$ based program for control.
> There is no hardware switch.
>
> I guess this is the end of the road with this.
>
> I’d like to thank you for the time spent helping me with this trouble,
> if anything I’ve learned some things. :slight_smile:

Did you load the module I mentioned earlier? It comes from the section of the
kernel that contains the wmi code.