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Old 08-06-2008, 07:36 PM   #1
aheirich
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Registered: Nov 2003
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Lenovo T61p Atheros 5212 wireless doesn't work


I've read that the MadWifi package is supposed to make this work, but it doesn't work for me. Here is my iwconfig:

~/ar @heirich-laptop> iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wifi0 no wireless extensions.

ath0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"" Nickname:""
Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power:0 dBm Sensitivity=1/1
Retryff RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Power Managementff
Link Quality=0/70 Signal level=0 dBm Noise level=0 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.

Any suggestions are welcome, thanks in advance.
 
Old 08-07-2008, 12:20 AM   #2
tomtomjkw
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What do you mean by "it doesn't work" ? The output of iwconfig is correct, you just have to enter connection settings in proper place. It would be useful to know what your distro is and what type of connection you intend to use.

Last edited by tomtomjkw; 08-07-2008 at 04:47 AM.
 
Old 08-07-2008, 11:34 AM   #3
aheirich
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doesn't associate

No matter what settings I enter using iwconfig, the wireless device never associates with an access point. I've set the essid, key, management, etc. There are no errors showing up in dmeg or /var/log/messages. I don't know where to look next.

I'm running Fedora Core 9, 2.6 kernel
/home/heirich/ar @heirich-laptop% uname -a
Linux heirich-laptop.arastra.com 2.6.25.11-97.fc9.i686 #1 SMP Mon Jul 21 01:31:09 EDT 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux


thanks
 
Old 08-07-2008, 11:54 AM   #4
tomtomjkw
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ok
first, post the output of
Code:
iwlist ath0 scan
. if it shows
Quote:
interface doesn't support scanning. network is down
, do
Code:
ifconfig ath0 up
and try again.
the result should show at least your network. if it shows nothing, there's the problem.
second, please post
Code:
lsmod |grep ath
and
Code:
lspci |grep Ath
. maybe you don't have madwifi driver, but ath5k, which is included in newer kernels, but also is a piece of crap
third, tell us what kind of security do you use: WEP or WPA? if it's WPA, you must configure wpa_supplicant, if it's WEP, iwconfig is sufficient, but wpa_supplicant handles also WEP encryption and does it way better.
 
Old 08-07-2008, 01:17 PM   #5
aheirich
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Here is my output. I do have madWifi installed and (I think) I blacklisted ath5k.

I have to wireless networks, one is WEP and the other is WPA. I have wpa_supplicant 0.6.3 installed.

thanks

~/ar @heirich-laptop> iwlist ath0 scan
ath0 No scan results

~/ar @heirich-laptop> lsmod | grep ath
dm_multipath 18056 0
ath_rate_sample 13568 1
ath_pci 80416 0
wlan 170060 5 wlan_wep,wlan_scan_sta,ath_rate_sample,ath_pci
ath_hal 193232 3 ath_rate_sample,ath_pci
dm_mod 48980 9 dm_multipath,dm_snapshot,dm_zero,dm_mirror
~/ar @heirich-laptop> lspci | grep ath
~/ar @heirich-laptop> lspci | grep Ath
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
 
Old 08-07-2008, 02:55 PM   #6
tomtomjkw
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aheirich View Post
Here is my output. I do have madWifi installed and (I think) I blacklisted ath5k.
according to lsmod output that's right.


Quote:
~/ar @heirich-laptop> iwlist ath0 scan
ath0 No scan results
here's the problem - card can't detect any network so there's nothing to connect to.

Quote:
~/ar @heirich-laptop> lspci | grep Ath
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
madwifi.org shows that the chip is supported, modules are loaded ok, strange. maybe your networks have hidden SSID - if so, change it and try again iwlist command. i'm running out of ideas, but please post
Code:
lspci -vv
output, but only the part concerning Atheros chip.
 
Old 08-08-2008, 11:50 AM   #7
aheirich
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Ok, here is the output from lspci -vv

thanks

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
Subsystem: IBM ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini Express Adapter (AR5BXB6)
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17
Region 0: Memory at df2f0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ath_pci
 
Old 08-08-2008, 03:59 PM   #8
tomtomjkw
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ok, my two last ideas:
A
1. remove madwifi
2. download http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi...0080801.tar.gz this version and install (unpack, cd to directory, make, make install) it.
3. check whether ath0 is available and whether iwlist shows anything.

B
try to check with some other distro's live cd, like ubuntu 8.04 - this card should work out of the box in theory.
 
Old 08-08-2008, 04:03 PM   #9
aheirich
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thanks a lot, I'll keep plugging away at this ...
 
  


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