Need to buy a wifi dongle?
 

I have a netbook that uses an intel 3160 wireless chip. I tried ubuntu and Mint and both sees the wifi networks available to connect to but it can't connect my router. The wifi chip uses the iwlwifi driver.

I tried everything on the web and on youtube about fixing this but to no avail.

So, I need help on choosing a wireless dongle that will work out of the box if possible. Thanks

What version of Ubuntu & Mint did you use? Intel 3160 works out of the box for me in 16.04...

The lateset ones on each.

What security setup are you using on your router? That chip should most definitely work with the latest versions (I don't have a 3160 anymore, but to my knowledge there aren't any regressions in any of the recent kernels for that chip).

My router is fine. I can connect my other wifi devices that I have to it. It's just the netbook that will not connect.

Some additional info.

dmesg says that iwlwifi-3160-17.ucode failed to load. On both ubuntu and Mint, only iwlwifi-3160-16.ucode is available in /lib/firmware.

I tried a suggestion on the web on downloading the iwlwifi-3160-17.ucode firmware and putting it in /lib/firmware and then reboot, but that didn't work either.

So, I am stuck and need to get a linux compatible dongle.

I was looking on amazon and found this.

Plugable USB 2.0 Wireless N 802.11n 150 Mbps Nano WiFi Network Adapter (Realtek RTL8188CUS Chipset) Plug & Play for Windows, Raspberry Pi and Pi2, Linux

I think I will try this dongle above. It costs only $9.95.

I appreciate the replies from all in here. Thanks

ThinkPenguin sells wireless dongles guaranteed to work with Linux. I bought one when the wireless chip in my old Asus died and it worked just fine.

" wifi networks available to connect"

I think this means that it really is working. It is at least receiving beacons. A new nic may not improve this until you figure out why you can't connect.

See this at least for clues. https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=1289