[SOLVED] wlan0 Stopped Working After Laptop Battery Died

Reamer · 10-19-2010, 12:39 AM

I'm using a MSI Wind u100 Netbook running Slackware 13.1

I'm very new to Linux but trying my best to learn it. I configured my card to work on my hidden network and worked flawlessly. Even connected to the college network just using the iwconfig wlan0 essid "ESSID" so it didn't effect my configuration files, came home, connected to my hidden network just fine again. I got a little careless, but I was also curious to see what would happen if my battery died cause I knew it wouldn't take much longer. Curiosity killed my wireless... I do have to use dhcpcd at startup since I haven't wrote the script to start it during startup so usually I type that and I'm connected to the internet. Since my battery put my computer into standby and I've restarted multiple times, iwlist wlan0 scan comes back saying that there was no scan results, iwconfig doesn't show essid at all, editing the rc.wireless.conf and inet1 files don't change anything at all, and ifconfig wlan0 down/up does nothing. Have searched for quite awhile with no success and it's getting late so I'm hoping there's someone out there that has the simple solution to this stupid problem.

I appreciate any patience y'all show towards my ignorance.

czarherr · 10-19-2010, 01:07 AM

Let's see the output of a few commands

ifconfig -a
iwconfig wlan0
lsmod

Reamer · 10-19-2010, 01:37 AM

The output for ifconfig -a is(this is just the wlan0 part):

Code:

Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0,0 B) TX bytes:0 (0,0 B)
Interupt:17 Memory:f8200000-f8200100

Output for iwconfig wlan0:

Code:

802.11b/g Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Retry:on RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management timeout:0us mode:All packets recieved
Link Quality=0/100 Signal level=0 dbm Noise level=0 dbm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Ok, for you to get the output for lsmod, you're gonna have to give up the secret on how you're able to paste so much code into these forums because I refuse to believe that everyone hand types everything like I just did for the past 2 outputs.

Forgot to mention that I also used my Ubuntu 10.04 Live CD to boot up also to see if I could get my wireless working in it (which is usually a task Hellen Keller could perform) and I came up empty handed.

Hangdog42 · 10-19-2010, 07:08 AM

Quote:

Ok, for you to get the output for lsmod, you're gonna have to give up the secret on how you're able to paste so much code into these forums because I refuse to believe that everyone hand types everything like I just did for the past 2 outputs.

The secret is redirects. So in this case if you used something like this at the console:

iwconfig wlan0 > wlan0.txt

See the > sign? That redirects the output to whatever is on the right. In this case it would be a text file called wlan0.txt, which you could open in any text editor. If you do a little googling on redirects, you'll find they are one of the most useful tools Linux has to offer.

By the way, if you look at the lspci output, can you see what chipset your wireless card uses? That would help.

czarherr · 10-19-2010, 07:58 AM

This might sound stupid, and I apologize, but check to make sure you didn't accidentally switch the card off. The switch on mine is easy to accidentally toggle.

Aside from that, I wanted to see ifconfig -a in it's entirety to see if any other network devices were active.

Reamer · 10-19-2010, 08:26 AM

Thanks on the redirect info. I'm just on my phone right now so I can't get you the output of those commands just yet but I will as soon as i can.

Don't worry about giving me advice that sounds stupid, you never know when it is somehing like that. My laptop doesn't have a physical switch though and its a Fn+F key that toggles it so I know i didn't turn it off while in Slackware. I thought about that though and thats one of the things I tried to troubleshoot while I was booted up with my ubuntu live cd. Turned it off, back on, no change.

Another thing, again I'm not at my computer so I can't see the chipset of the WiFi card but I know its a Realtek R8187SE. There maybe a T after the R but i can't remember. I know there isn't an L. I know thats sometimes in the names of realtek chips.

EDIT: The wireless is Realtek RTL8187SE, just never saw that in Windows for whatever reason, but the lspci showed that.

Reamer · 10-19-2010, 10:41 AM

Ok, I got the txt files from the output of the commands, here they are:

ifconfig -a:

Code:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:21:85:e5:c8:00  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:26 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:21:85:86:09:f7  
          inet addr:169.254.24.38  Bcast:169.254.255.255  Mask:255.255.0.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:17 Memory:f81b8000-f81b8100

iwconfig wlan0:

Code:

wlan0     802.11b/g  Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.422 GHz  
          Access Point: Not-Associated   Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   
          Retry:on   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=0/100  Signal level=0 dBm  Noise level=0 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

lsmod:

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
snd_seq_dummy           1107  0 
snd_seq_oss            25580  0 
snd_seq_midi_event      4620  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                42857  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device          4543  3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss            33917  0 
snd_mixer_oss          13399  1 snd_pcm_oss
ipv6                  229909  12 
pcmcia                 27872  0 
pcmcia_core            25659  1 pcmcia
cpufreq_ondemand        6917  2 
speedstep_lib           2683  0 
acpi_cpufreq            5705  1 
freq_table              2027  2 cpufreq_ondemand,acpi_cpufreq
lp                      7161  0 
ppdev                   5103  0 
parport_pc             18027  0 
parport                25487  3 lp,ppdev,parport_pc
fuse                   52401  1 
snd_hda_codec_realtek   185089  1 
snd_hda_intel          18936  0 
i915                  263263  1 
snd_hda_codec          57091  2 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
drm_kms_helper         23751  1 i915
snd_hwdep               5046  1 snd_hda_codec
drm                   133002  2 i915,drm_kms_helper
snd_pcm                57736  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_timer              15699  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
i2c_algo_bit            4355  1 i915
rtc_cmos                7838  0 
processor              26515  3 acpi_cpufreq
psmouse                40750  0 
thermal                10194  0 
i2c_i801                7194  0 
led_class               2037  0 
intel_agp              22699  1 
snd                    43107  11 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer
rtc_core               12050  1 rtc_cmos
video                  15937  1 i915
r8169                  31285  0 
thermal_sys            12086  3 processor,thermal,video
wmi                     5343  0 
battery                 7944  0 
ac                      2423  0 
rtc_lib                 1522  1 rtc_core
agpgart                23773  2 drm,intel_agp
hwmon                   1085  1 thermal_sys
button                  3934  1 i915
i2c_core               15279  5 i915,drm_kms_helper,drm,i2c_algo_bit,i2c_i801
evdev                   6939  6 
output                  1444  1 video
serio_raw               3754  0 
mii                     3322  1 r8169
soundcore               4815  1 snd
r8187se               155332  0 
snd_page_alloc          5849  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
sg                     21214  0

Also, I'm trusting y'all will give me a legitimate answer to this, by having my MAC addresses and inet address visible, am I leaving myself open to venerabilities? I don't feel like it's much of a threat but I'd rather ask a stupid question and know I'm safe instead of kicking myself later on for not clarifying.

Hangdog42 · 10-19-2010, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Also, I'm trusting y'all will give me a legitimate answer to this, by having my MAC addresses and inet address visible, am I leaving myself open to venerabilities?

Just block them out or fake them. It isn't a real security issue, but no sense in putting information out there you don't have to. However, in your case, that isn't a real IP address, it is one of the temp/fake addresses used when a DHCP server can't be found.

So what I'm gathering from your output is:

- The driver is loaded as there is the r8187se module in your lsmod output. According to the driver description, your chipset should work with that.

- According to iwconfig, you're not connected to an access point. I suspect that you haven't really configured the wireless card.

Since you're using Slackware, you really want to install wicd, which is a great tool for managing network connections. You'll find a package for wicd in the /extra directory of the Slackware install disk. Install it with installpkg, then go to /etc/rc.d and make sure rc.wicd is executable and then run it (or reboot). From your GUI, open a console and run wicd-client. That will bring up a GUI that will let you configure your card and request an IP address. If you ever find yourself with only console access, wicd-curses does the same thing as wicd-client, only without a GUI.

Reamer · 10-19-2010, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hangdog42

- According to iwconfig, you're not connected to an access point. I suspect that you haven't really configured the wireless card.

That's where my problem is though. My card was configured perfectly. I was connected to my hidden network, used the command iwconfig wlan0 essid "College SSID" to temporarily switch, came home, reconnected to my network perfectly, and while using Lynx Browser my laptop died and it hasn't worked since. Editing the files rc.inet1.conf and rc.wireless.conf do nothing to change my output of the iwconfig command. I'm actually wanting to use the GUI as little as possible because I'm using this to learn. Otherwise I would use Ubuntu like I use to and stay as ignorant as I was to commands.

Hangdog42 · 10-19-2010, 03:25 PM

Quote:

That's where my problem is though. My card was configured perfectly. I was connected to my hidden network, used the command iwconfig wlan0 essid "College SSID" to temporarily switch, came home, reconnected to my network perfectly, and while using Lynx Browser my laptop died and it hasn't worked since.

I did go back and read your original post, and you are seeing odd behavior. A powerdown should just mean that the parameters are re-loaded on boot. The only thing I can think is that something got corrupted during an unclean shutdown like a battery running out of juice. You may take a look at your log files (/var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog) and the output of dmesg to see if the driver or the wireless hardware is complaining about anything during boot. By the way, hiding your SSID really does nothing to increase security and in this case may actually be causing a problem. Some drivers have historically had problems with hidden access points. Just for giggles, you might turn your SSID broadcast back on and see if that helps.

Quote:

Editing the files rc.inet1.conf and rc.wireless.conf do nothing to change my output of the iwconfig command.

Could you post the relevant bit of rc.inet1.conf and your rc.wireless.conf? By the way, if you check out AlienBOB's wiki entry (one of the Slackware developers) he recommends just using rc.inet1.conf.

Quote:

I'm actually wanting to use the GUI as little as possible because I'm using this to learn. Otherwise I would use Ubuntu like I use to and stay as ignorant as I was to commands.

I do understand your point, but I've always found wireless to be one of the areas where not using a tool like wicd is more annoying than anything else. I guess part of it is I connect to a number of different access points, and I've found wicd to be a huge time-saver. Not to mention I've always found Slackware's official approach to be kind of cumbersome when it comes to wireless networks. It kind of expects you to be connected to a single network.

Reamer · 10-19-2010, 04:58 PM

I believe I may have found in the syslog where the unclean shutdown occured. It's repeated for awhile:

Code:

end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 4195200
Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 524400

I know hiding my SSID doesn't do much, it's just hidden because usually I have WPA2-AES encryption and I threw that it there for kicks. I know that isn't my problem because it worked perfect before. If it doesn't work once my card starts scanning then I'll change it to test, but right now the command iwlist wlan0 scan says that there are "no scan results" whenever I have 3-4 neighbors that have visible networks. It also happens instantly, doesn't even pause to make it look like it scanned.

I attached the part of rc.inet1.conf that is relevant. I know it's an ugly file, but it was getting the job done. I didn't worry about cleaning it up because eventually I want to be able to re-enable my WPA2-AES security and configure Slackware for it.

Reamer · 10-20-2010, 12:18 AM

To humor y'all I tried scanning with my wireless broadcasting and what I expected to happen, happened. It immediately came up with "no scan results" because the card isn't scanning.

This is actually after a fresh Slackware install that I just done. I kinda half-assed it and looking back it didn't save any time. When I got to the part of using the cfdisk utility I just erased the old boot partition and made the new one one the same free space. I was hoping my problem would have at least been fixed by that but I should have formatted the swap and extra partition as well. I'll probably do that tomorrow because if that doesn't fix it then I don't know what will. Thank you all for all the help though.

Hangdog42 · 10-20-2010, 07:18 AM

Yeah, that unclean shutdown definitely did some damage. I'm surprised that fsck wasn't forced on the next boot. Can I ask what file system your using (not really relevant to the wireless problem, just curious).

Quote:

I attached the part of rc.inet1.conf that is relevant.

I noticed one thing, namely that you've got the WPA configuration commented out. If you're not starting wpa_supplicant manually, that may be the cause of the problem. Scanning should still work however. Also, until this is sorted out, you might consider keeping this to just the bare essentials. You've done things like preventing modifications to resolv.conf, ntp.conf and the gateway. For now, you might let DHCP handle this stuff and then add it back in once the problem is sorted out.

Quote:

To humor y'all I tried scanning with my wireless broadcasting and what I expected to happen, happened. It immediately came up with "no scan results" because the card isn't scanning.

Have you looked in the log files after doing this? I'm really hoping that there is some complaining in there.

Quote:

This is actually after a fresh Slackware install that I just done. I kinda half-assed it and looking back it didn't save any time. When I got to the part of using the cfdisk utility I just erased the old boot partition and made the new one one the same free space. I was hoping my problem would have at least been fixed by that but I should have formatted the swap and extra partition as well. I'll probably do that tomorrow because if that doesn't fix it then I don't know what will. Thank you all for all the help though.

Given the corruption on the disc, a reformat and install seems like a pretty sane thing to do.

Reamer · 10-20-2010, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hangdog42

Can I ask what file system your using (not really relevant to the wireless problem, just curious).

I'm using ext4 for the file system.

Quote:

I noticed one thing, namely that you've got the WPA configuration commented out. If you're not starting wpa_supplicant manually, that may be the cause of the problem. Scanning should still work however. Also, until this is sorted out, you might consider keeping this to just the bare essentials. You've done things like preventing modifications to resolv.conf, ntp.conf and the gateway. For now, you might let DHCP handle this stuff and then add it back in once the problem is sorted out.

I only have wpa-supplicant commented out for now because I turned the security off on my wireless temporarily just to make this a lil easier to figure out. I'll be sure to also comment out the lines that prevent modifications to the other files though.

Quote:

Have you looked in the log files after doing this? I'm really hoping that there is some complaining in there.

Not right after. That would be the smart thing to do huh. I will this afternoon when I have some more time and get back to you on what I find out.

Quote:

Given the corruption on the disc, a reformat and install seems like a pretty sane thing to do.

Yeah, another thing I'll do this afternoon is do a complete reinstall with formatting the swap and extra partition as well so I'm not cutting corners. Thank you.

Skaperen · 10-20-2010, 01:52 PM

Check your BIOS settings. I don't have an MSI Wind, but I do have an ASUS EeePC, which does have BIOS > Advanced > Onboard Devices Configuration which disabled my Camera and WLAN when I let my battery run down hard once. Apparently something caused it to lose or reset the BIOS, and the initial state appears to be Disabled for those.

Another time the battery ran down, that didn't happen, but I also plugged it in within a couple minutes to recharge, and BIOS had not changed. But the first time it ran down, I didn't get back to recharging it for over a day, so it sat for 24+ hours without any power.