Wireless Network Unclaimed?

Mr.Snrub · 12-26-2020, 08:37 AM

Hi All, Linux noob here. I recently installed PopOS on my Teclast F6 plus and cannot get the system to recognize my wireless card (Intel 3165). I have tried literally dozens of fixes for similar issues I found on the Net but nothing works. Network Settings does not give me the option to add a wireless network, only wired and VPN. Based on my research I suspect the problem is a missing driver, but the 3165 is a common card and the driver should be included in the installation. In fact:

ls /lib/firmware | grep 3165

iwlwifi-3165-13.ucode
iwlwifi-3165-9.ucode

Here is some more output:

lshw -c net

*-network UNCLAIMED
description: Network controller
product: Wireless 3165
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
version: 79
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: memory:80100000-80101fff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 1
bus info: usb@1:5
logical name: usb0
serial: ca:88:d5:4e:13:2d
capabilities: ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rndis_host driverversion=22-Aug-2005 firmware=RNDIS device ip=192.168.42.156 link=yes multicast=yes

lspci -knn | grep Net -A3; rfkill list

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wireless 3165 [8086:3165] (rev 79)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Wireless 3165 [8086:8110]
Kernel modules: iwlwifi
0: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

Can anyone help me? As I said I am a total noob and would appreciate explicit instructions. I am tethering though my phone and can download whatever packages I might need. Many thanks!

computersavvy · 12-26-2020, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Snrub

lshw -c net

*-network UNCLAIMED
description: Network controller
product: Wireless 3165
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
version: 79
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: memory:80100000-80101fff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 1
bus info: usb@1:5
logical name: usb0
serial: ca:88:d5:4e:13:2d
capabilities: ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rndis_host driverversion=22-Aug-2005 firmware=RNDIS device ip=192.168.42.156 link=yes multicast=yes

lspci -knn | grep Net -A3; rfkill list

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wireless 3165 [8086:3165] (rev 79)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Wireless 3165 [8086:8110]
Kernel modules: iwlwifi
0: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

Can anyone help me? As I said I am a total noob and would appreciate explicit instructions. I am tethering though my phone and can download whatever packages I might need. Many thanks!

What you post here does not match what you describe.

The output of lshw shows a wireless intel device, with an IP address assigned but using the RNDIS driver. Where did that driver come from?

Code:

 driver=rndis_host driverversion=22-Aug-2005 firmware=RNDIS

The output of lspci shows what seems to be the same device with the iwlwifi driver.

I think that if you resolve how and where the rndis driver is getting loaded and remove it so it does not get loaded, the default iwlwifi driver for the intel chipset will take over and things should go better. 15 years ago the rndis driver may have been needed. Today not so much with the newer kernels and default firmware for intel devices.

Mr.Snrub · 12-27-2020, 02:28 AM

Hi Coumputersavvy, thank you for the reply!

Quote:

Originally Posted by computersavvy

I think that if you resolve how and where the rndis driver is getting loaded and remove it so it does not get loaded, the default iwlwifi driver for the intel chipset will take over and things should go better.

How would I go about doing this?

computersavvy · 12-27-2020, 11:32 AM

What may work as a temporary fix would be to manually remove the driver "rndis_host" from the kernel with

Code:

 rmmod rndis_host

then

Code:

 modprobe iwlwifi

After this repeat your lshw command from above and see if the device has the iwlwifi driver installed.

I would guess that it is likely that the source for the rndis_host is somewhere under /usr/src/kernels/your.kernel/drivers

You said this is a new install of popOS. You also said you have "tried literally dozens of fixes for similar issues I found on the Net but nothing works." I would guess one of those "fixes" was to install rndis_host. You will need to go back to where ever you got that from and search how to uninstall it so it can be taken out of the picture.

Mr.Snrub · 12-27-2020, 11:54 AM

I tried computersavvy's suggestion and it disabled my USB tethering (until a reboot) but did not enable wifi. The output of lshw was unchanged. Any other ideas?