[SOLVED] Problem setting up Netgear wi-fi pci card in Debian

xiongnu · 01-29-2014, 05:56 PM

hi,

i've a Netgear PCI MA311 wi-fi card that i'd like to use with my Debian7 box. i've installed the 'prism54' driver associated with this wi-fi card. network manager 'wicd' is installed as well. 'ifconfig' correctly identifies the card.

However, when i use 'wicd' to setup wifi network, it can't detect any wi-fi network. wifi interface is set to 'wlan0'. i've my linksys54l wifi router up and running and there's also other networks in the neighborhood.

any help is appreciated.

thanks,

markush · 02-01-2014, 05:22 PM

Well, if wicd doesn't "see" the accesspoint, you may use iwlist:

Code:

iwlist wlan0 scan

Be sure to check that wlan0 is really up before executing the command. If you want to check for your own network you may pipe the output to "grep -i ssid".

Markus

xiongnu · 02-03-2014, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by markush

Well, if wicd doesn't "see" the accesspoint, you may use iwlist:

Code:

iwlist wlan0 scan

Be sure to check that wlan0 is really up before executing the command. If you want to check for your own network you may pipe the output to "grep -i ssid".

Markus

when i executed 'iwlist wlan0 scan', i received

Code:

#iwlist wlan0 scan
 
wlan0: no scan results

does this mean wi-fi isn't running? what should i do to diagnose the problem?

markush · 02-03-2014, 01:47 PM

This means that the wireless adapter isn't functioning correctly, provided that there are really wireless networks around. You could post the output of

Code:

lspci -k | grep -iA3 wire

this will show which module the kernel uses for the device. It would also be good to take a look at the output of

Code:

ifconfig

(executed as root).

Markus

xiongnu · 02-03-2014, 08:28 PM

output of 'lspci' and 'ifconfig':

Code:

erdos@16big:~$ lspci -k | grep -iA3 wire
	Subsystem: Netgear MA311 802.11b wireless adapter [ISL3874]
	Kernel driver in use: hostap_pci
02:0c.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller (rev 46)
	Subsystem: Device 0574:086c
	Kernel driver in use: firewire_ohci


 
root@16big:/home/erdos# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:11:09:89:ba:c3  
          inet addr:192.168.1.6  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::211:9ff:fe89:bac3/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:926 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1031 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:478050 (466.8 KiB)  TX bytes:127110 (124.1 KiB)
          Interrupt:20 Base address:0x2000 

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:19 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:19 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:1976 (1.9 KiB)  TX bytes:1976 (1.9 KiB)

wifi0     Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-09-5B-68-4E-68-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2485 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:19 Base address:0x8000 

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:09:5b:68:4e:68  
          inet6 addr: fe80::209:5bff:fe68:4e68/64 Scope:Link
          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:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:19 Base address:0x8000

i couldn't make much of it, any suggestions?

markush · 02-04-2014, 07:25 AM

It seems that there are problems with the hostap_pci module, I'd recommend to use google and search in the internet about how to fix this issue.

What is your "wifi0" interface?

Markus

xiongnu · 02-04-2014, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by markush

It seems that there are problems with the hostap_pci module, I'd recommend to use google and search in the internet about how to fix this issue.

What is your "wifi0" interface?

Markus

'wifi0' is the internal parts of the card. wlan0 is what all userspace stuff should address it as.

i fixed the problem by issuing the following mode change command from root:

Code:

root@16big:/home/erdos# iwconfig wlan0 mode managed

before mode change:

Code:

root@16big:/home/erdos# iwconfig 
wifi0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"test"  
          Mode:Master  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: 00:09:5B:68:4E:68   
          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Sensitivity=1/3  
          Retry short limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          
lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"test"  
          Mode:Master  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: 00:09:5B:68:4E:68   
          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Sensitivity=1/3  
          Retry short limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:6  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:4   Missed beacon:0

eth0      no wireless extensions.

after mode change:

Code:

root@16big:/home/erdos# iwconfig 
wifi0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"test"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: None   
          Bit Rate:2 Mb/s   Sensitivity=1/3  
          Retry short limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          
lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"test"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: None   
          Bit Rate:2 Mb/s   Sensitivity=1/3  
          Retry short limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=0/70  Signal level=-73 dBm  Noise level=-73 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:6  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:5   Missed beacon:0

eth0      no wireless extensions.

after this, 'wicd' can scan wifi networks successfully