LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] Wireless fail

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- - Wireless fail - Netgear wg311t on Xubuntu (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/wireless-fail-netgear-wg311t-on-xubuntu-4175539981/)

Wireless fail - Netgear wg311t on Xubuntu

The most recent info on this card is about 10 years old.

The story is that I had an old dying PC with a vast accumulation of dust, causing sparks to fly.
I transferred the disk & wireless card across to a "known good PC" - and "amazingly" it worked.

This lasted for about a week.
OS is Xubuntu 12.04 and recommended updates of an unknown nature were applied from repositories & PPA's (not by me).

Soon after, wireless on the ancient Netgear wg311t PCI card failed.
I've tried moving it to a different slot - still does not work.
I've tried booting up from a Xubuntu 14.04.2 DVD - still does not work.
The two slots give slightly different results to the command

Code:

dmesg | grep ath5k

First slot

Code:

[  63.714417] ath5k 0000:05:06.0: registered as 'phy0'

[  63.733142] ath5k: phy0: failed to wakeup the MAC Chip

[  63.733482] ath5k: probe of 0000:05:06.0 failed with error -5

Second slot

Code:

[  13.594859] ath5k 0000:05:08.0: PCI INT A -> Link[APC3] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18

[  13.594943] ath5k 0000:05:08.0: registered as 'phy0'

[  13.606136] ath5k phy0: failed to wakeup the MAC Chip

[  13.606531] ath5k 0000:05:08.0: PCI INT A disabled

[  13.606768] ath5k: probe of 0000:05:08.0 failed with error -5

I'm prepared to buy a replacement card - so long as it is cheap!

If I were you, the first thing I would do is plug that card into another "known good" PC running the same version of Xubuntu and see whether the machine picks up on it. If it does, you know you have something wrong with this machine. If not, might be time for a new card. Image your existing machine with something like Redo Backup, put that image on the other known good machine, (preferably of the same variety) then test accordingly. If the card is already 10 years old, I wouldn't be spending all that much time on it, personally.

That's a good idea - but unfortunately my only candidate desktop is a virtually new and rather expensive machine.
I've got mostly laptops littering the place.

I'm planning on getting a "TP-LINK TL-WN781ND 150Mbps" - because its cheap. :mad:

Or, you could install VirtualBox and pass the hardware to the VM...

The difficulty is that it's a PCI card and it might have affected by the original destruction of the motherboard.
(I saw sparks only inches away from it).

It's replacement is only £10.

The moment I saw sparks, I'd no longer be able to trust that component. I'd take it out and hope to God it didn't impact other components.