Cannot connect to Wireless with AR928x under Ubuntu, but they are clearly visible?

Zerimas · 02-01-2009, 12:33 AM

I have an Asus M50vm, and I love it, save for the fact the wireless (AR928X) will not connect to any networks (encrypted or unencrypted) under Ubuntu 8.10. The wireless card very clearly works: I can turn it on and off by futzing around in the terminal and using the command "iwlist scan" produces a list of various wireless networks around my university. If it makes any difference I am using WICD as my network manager.

Thanks!

ajlewis2 · 02-01-2009, 05:43 AM

If Wicd shows the list of access points and you cannot connect, I don't know what the problem could be. It sounds like the driver is loaded and working.

I can tell you that I had a similar experience with one particular Atheros chip which I no longer have. I have used several other wifi cards, but this particular chipset did not work after madwifi was changed to the "new madwifi" In other words, it did work for a year or so and then one fine day there was an upgrade and it no longer did.

The solution for me was to give up and use ndiswrapper with the driver that came with the card for Windows.

You can first try iwconfig to see if ath0 is listed. That used to be the name used for it. Then try 'dhclient ath0'. Be sure that Wicd is using that same name under preferences too. I guess you also want the WPA supplicant driver to be set to madwifi in Wicd. I'm not sure, because I did not use Wicd at the time of my Atheros trial. :-)

repo · 02-01-2009, 05:46 AM

Do you get error messages when you connect?

Code:

tail -f /var/log/syslog

wep, wpa....
dhcp, fixed ip...

Zerimas · 02-01-2009, 10:26 AM

I attempted to connect using the command line. Here is the output from my failed attempt.

First I used

Code:

 iwconfig wlan0 essid uw-wireless

Then when I ran dhclient to get an ip address I received the following output:

Code:

There is already a pid file /var/run/dhclient.pid with pid 27759
killed old client process, removed PID file
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.1
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/

wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
Listening on LPF/wlan0/00:15:af:cd:ed:33
Sending on   LPF/wlan0/00:15:af:cd:ed:33
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 6
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 15
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 15
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 21
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 4
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.

Any suggestions? By the way I am using the ath9k module that is included with Ubuntu.

ajlewis2 · 02-01-2009, 01:33 PM

I can tell you that this symptom with dhclient was what I also got with my Atheros chip. As I said, I got it going with nsdiswrapper in the end. At the time I even tried compiling the latest madwifi and other trouble-shooting ideas. I spent months on it interacting with madwifi gurus, I think even developers.

For a while as I recall, I used an older kernel that still had the old-madwifi, but eventually that option was no longer available with a newer version of Ubuntu; so ndiswrapper was my answer.

Zerimas · 02-01-2009, 04:31 PM

Do you you think using dhcpd as opposed to dhclient would help?

Zerimas · 02-04-2009, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zerimas

Do you you think using dhcpd as opposed to dhclient would help?

Ha! Marginal success! I switched to dhcpcd and now I can connect--sort of. Once I actually establish a connection my signal drops from 50% to 0% and it frequently disconnects and reconnects. Any tips? I'm so close to getting this to work correctly.

farslayer · 02-04-2009, 10:12 AM

I imagine you are using the ath9k driver.. What kernel are you running ?

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k

Quote:

Ubuntu users will want to upgrade to at least 2.6.27-11

If you are not seeing linux-image-2.6.27-11-generic in your package search please be sure to add the -proposed source to your apt sources. You can do that through the command line adding the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

# Ubuntu proposed changes - move to intrepid-updates at leas quarterly
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-proposed main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-proposed main restricted

Then do:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.27-11-generic

Zerimas · 02-04-2009, 11:00 AM

I am using 2.6.27-11-generic and running the ath9k driver.

farslayer · 02-04-2009, 07:22 PM

I was hoping it was just an older version of the driver, but it looks like you are already on top of that one..

Zerimas · 02-04-2009, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by farslayer

I was hoping it was just an older version of the driver, but it looks like you are already on top of that one..

Actually, it turns out that was the problem! I used compat-wireless to update my ath9k driver and now my card works! I haven't tested it out on WPA encrypted networks, but it works fine on my university's unencrypted network!