thinkpad x61 ath9k headaches
 

So I've decided to get an 80211 g/n mini pci express atheros based replacement for my crappy intel card.

After getting through the BIOS modifications necessary to make the thinkpad remember that I decide what hardware goes into my laptop not them I got gentoo linux detecting the new card via lspci which yielded my new atheros ar928x.

Now here comes the fun. I've tried two methods to get my new card drivers.
The one in the kernel I'm using (2.6.34) and the bleeding edge ones available via wireless-compat. Each works (ath9k modules in both cases) and creates the interface wlan0 when I boot but neither of them actually function.

ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 essid mynet key mykey
dhcpcd wlan0 (wait a while...fail)
iw wlan0 connect myessid freq 2442 key d:0:mykey (this worked on my intel)
(wait a while...FAIL)
NOTHING. There is no MAC whitelist issue.
iwlist wlan0 scan
no results.

Basically the card interface is present, but nothing actually functions. I'm very perplexed by this.

The only thing I can think of that might be the cause of this problem is the fact that the EEPROM says that the regdomain is set to 0x6a which from what I've read is not what its supposed to be. I don't know how to change the EEPROM to 0x00 (USA code) so I'm at a loss.

Does anyone have ANY idea what I can do to get my new card working?

Thanks.

Hi, to change the regulatory domain, iw should do the trick as for the card, the first thing to try would be : sit just next to your AP, and run a scan. I have an atheros too, and the performance is dreadful. If you still get nothing, check the logs.

Serafean