ipw2200 nightmares!!!

brooky9999 · 03-17-2007, 10:20 PM

Hiya all,

I'm banging my head against the wall on this one!

I cannot get my ipw2200 to load for love nor money. I get the following error:

Code:

ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
ipw2200: ipw-2.4-boot.fw load failed: Reason -2
ipw2200: Unable to load firmware: -2
ipw2200: failed to registed network device
ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:03:03.0 disabled
ipw2200: probe of 0000:03:03.0 failed with error -5

That output if from my last attempt, which was the older 1.1.0 drivers and the 2.4 firmware. I have of course tried the 1.2.1 driver with the 3.0 firmware... but it didn't work.

I have tried:

Different kernels
Different drivers (with corresponding firmware loaded into /lib/firmware)
OS rebuilds
Drivers include with the kernels
Drivers compiled from scratch
Physically removing / re-adding the wireless card
Removing / re-adding ACPI

I just cannot get it to work. I have tried patiently tonight for 6 hours.

The system is Slackware 10.2 on a Dell Latitude D610.

Please please please someone tell me what I'm missing. Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark.

baikonur · 03-18-2007, 04:21 AM

hi there,

it tells you what's wrong, doesn't it?
everything is fine, except for the firmware!

is the firmware in the right place? (the right place can be determined by a command
that can be found in the documentation on the sourceforge driver page, I just can't
recall it right now)
<edit>
look it up in /etc/hotplug/firmware.agent
at least it's that on my debian system
</edit>
is the firmware tarball unpacked properly? That was my problem, when I was just as
desperate getting it to work as you are now! I think it was a tar.bz2 file, but didn't
reveal that in it's extension
The 'file' command helped me find out which action to take.

Good luck, you're almost there!!

baik

brooky9999 · 03-18-2007, 09:20 AM

Hiya baikonur,

Like I said, I don't know what the hell it is. I know it's firmware related, but just cannot see how.

This has worked sooooo many times before - just not since I've rebuilt my machine. The firmware is definately in the right place for Slackware, I got this from:

Code:

root@ice9:~# egrep DIR /etc/hotplug/firmware.agent
FIRMWARE_DIR=/lib/firmware
if [ -f "$FIRMWARE_DIR/$FIRMWARE" ]; then
cp "$FIRMWARE_DIR/$FIRMWARE" $SYSFS/$DEVPATH/data

The firmware is listed as:

Code:

root@ice9:~# file ipw2200-fw-2.0.tgz
ipw2200-fw-3.0.tgz: gzip compressed data, from Unix

Which I unpack with:

Code:

root@ice9:~# tar xvzf ipw2200-fw-3.0.tgz

The contents are then put into /lib/firmware.

I'm close to tears :-(

M.

cpd05 · 03-18-2007, 10:03 AM

Hey,

You've probably already tried this but my ipw2200 will not load the firmware when the computer is first booted and gives the same error your getting, so I each time the machine boots up I have to run:

modprobe -r ipw2200
modprobe -r ieee80211
modprobe -r ieee80211_crypt

modprobe ipw2200

ifup eth0

The ipw2200 then works perfectly.
Oh and what ipw and ieee80211 drivers are you using because I've found that only the 1.2.x series work when I'm building them from source.

Chris.

brooky9999 · 03-18-2007, 10:11 AM

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply.

Yeah, I'd already tried that. When it started to 'not work' upon booting I began removing and reloading it... but nothing.

I'd also tried increasing the firmware with:

Code:

echo 100 > /sys/class/firmware/timeout

but that didn't work either :-(

Thanks for your help though,

M.

baikonur · 03-19-2007, 03:35 AM

ok, I'll take one more shot at it:
it says

Code:

ipw2200: ipw-2.4-boot.fw load failed: Reason -2

which tells us your driver (which version?) is looking for a file called
'ipw-2.4-boot.fw', but can't find it. Is it there?

I'm using the 3.0 firmware, which works fine with the driver included in my 2.6.17 Kernel.
I didn't install the driver, only the firmware. The 3.0 fw doesn't include a file named
.*boot.*

here's the contents of my fw directory:
ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw LICENSE.ipw2200-fw
ipw2200-fw-3.0.gz ipw2200-sniffer.fw

I hope this helps you tracking down the problem.
All info you should need, however, is neatly put at:
http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/INSTALL

BTW: which Kernel do you have installed?

good luck!!

baik

baikonur · 03-19-2007, 03:37 AM

I just saw that I had tried the 2.4 fw before, without success.

Code:

cvlaptop:/lib/firmware# locate boot.fw
/home/mpf/.Trash/ipw-2.4-boot.fw

Maybe you should try once more with the Kernel driver, and the latest firmware.
Assuming you have a reasonably new kernel installed.

baik

pixellany · 03-19-2007, 04:48 AM

I,too, have had big issues with this. I discovered that Ubuntu 6.10 works "out of the box". I have a note to myself to try and figure out what they do differently.

brooky9999 · 03-19-2007, 04:50 AM

Hiya,

Like I said, I've tried every conceivable combination of kernel / driver / firmware I can think of.

My current setup is the driver included in the kernel, which is 2.6.17. I can't go any higher than 2.6.17 as I have other problems compiling the Orinoco driver, but that's a different story.

The driver version included with 2.6.17 is 1.1.1, which dictates I use v3.0 firmware. I have placed this in /lib/firmware directory.

In previous tests I have used below 1.1.1 (v1.1.0) and have used the v2.4 firmware accordingly. That didn't work.

I've also tried downloading the latest driver version, v1.2.1, and compiling that after removing other traces on the in-built kernel module. Still no joy.

Thank you anyway for taking the time to replay though,

Mark.

Nick_Battle · 03-19-2007, 07:47 AM

Maybe you've checked this, but the -2 error is described in the driver INSTALL notes and mentions that one cause is not having sysfs mounted:

http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/INSTALL (section 12)

"CAUSE: this may be due to any one of the following reasons:
- firmware in wrong location or wrong firmware version. Follow the
instructions in the section LOADING FIRMWARE VIA HOT-PLUG above.
- sysfs may not be mounted. Follow the instructions in the SYSFS section
above."

Do you have sysfs mounted?

brooky9999 · 03-19-2007, 07:52 AM

Hiya Nick,

Sysfs is mounted :-(

Code:

root@ice9:~# mount
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
root@ice9:~#

Thanks for input though :-)

M.

nx5000 · 03-19-2007, 08:23 AM

Do you have the good options in your kernel?

Is hotplug turned on?

brooky9999 · 03-19-2007, 08:29 AM

Hiya,

Hotplug is turned on, yes.

How do you mean the "good options"

M.

nx5000 · 03-19-2007, 08:31 AM

The ones mentionned in the documentation maybe?

nx5000 · 03-19-2007, 08:33 AM

especially firmware stuffs

(just a guess..)