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Old 05-07-2009, 12:21 PM   #1
r_avital
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Registered: Oct 2006
Posts: 26

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Please help with Atheros wifi connection


Folks, I've done a ton of research on my own on this problem, and lots of troubleshooting, with some progress, but still stuck.

Laptop is MSI GX710 with Atheros AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI adapter built in.

Access Point is Netgear WG102 connected (wired) to Netgear Router FVS318. Any Windows/Mac machine with a working wifi adapter connects to it successfully.

The laptop came preloaded with Windows Vista, and connected successfully with the AP.

I removed Vista and installed Ubuntu 8.10. Wired connection works perfectly well. WIFI connection fails.

Based on recommendations in official Ubuntu wireless troubleshooting guide, I installed ndiswrapper, downloaded the windows driver, and installed them via the utility provided by ndiswrapper (System->Administration>Windows Wireless Drivers). This tool reports "Hardware present: Yes"

lsmod shows a long list of modules, not sure what I should look for, but it doesn't list anything that looks lik wlan or wifi (it does list ndiswrapper though).

sudo lshw -C network shows that the wifi is "UNCLAIMED" which according to ubuntu means there is no driver loaded. That conflicts with the above.

Please, any help would be appreciated. I don't want to resort to buying a USB wifi adapter when there already is one built in.

Thanks in advance
 
Old 05-08-2009, 06:00 PM   #2
MoonMind
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Registered: May 2005
Location: Switzerland
Distribution: Ubuntu
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What does lsmod | grep ndiswrapper say? If the output's empty, you need to do sudo modprobe -i ndiswrapper and then add "ndiswrapper" to /etc/modules.

But using the same chipset with Ubuntu hasn't been a problem with Jaunty - earlier (standard) kernels didn't support it. I suggest updating to Jaunty (9.04). I'm using the very same chipset right now (writing from a Asus EeePC 701 4G) with the standard Jaunty kernel.

M.
 
Old 05-11-2009, 12:19 PM   #3
r_avital
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Registered: Oct 2006
Posts: 26

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 15
Thanks so much MoonMind. I had also found some troubleshooting info here, among other places.

Eventually I solved the problem by installing Jaunty (Ubuntu 9.04). I believe in this case it is better to make a fresh install rather than upgrade Intrepid to Jaunty, for two reasons:

1. In Intrepid (8.10) there was some "blacklisting" of the ath5k driver (for the Atheros wifi adapter) that might carry over if you upgrade from a working installation of Intrepid to Jaunty.

2. Booting from a live CD of Jaunty will at least give some indication whether or not the device is supported - i.e. if it's not working in the live session, it still might work under the installed system, but if it does work in the live session (as it did for me) then you know it has to work after you install.

At any rate, thanks again, problem resolved
 
  


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