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Old 03-01-2005, 09:59 PM   #1
umichLinux
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firmware problems with ipw2200


I have the Intel pro/wireless 2200bg card in my laptop, so I installed the ipw2200 driver (along with dependencies). However, when I modprobe ipw2200 or use the ". load" script included in the tarball, the card never becomes usable. Relevant output from dmesg, iwconf, and lsmod follows:

$dmesg

...

divert: allocating divert_blk for eth0
eth0: RealTek RTL8139 at 0xe0a0a000, 00:02:3f:24:1f:a1, IRQ 10
eth0: Identified 8139 chip type 'RTL-8139'
ieee80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL'
ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.0.0
ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2004 Intel Corporation
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:02:02.0[A] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth1
ipw2200: ipw-2.2-boot.fw load failed: Reason -2
ipw2200: Unable to load firmware: 0xFFFFFFFE
divert: freeing divert_blk for eth1
ipw2200: failed to register network device
ipw2200: probe of 0000:02:02.0 failed with error -5

$ /sbin/iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

$ lsmod

...

ipw2200 135372 0
firmware_class 9920 1 ipw2200
ieee80211 37092 1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt 5704 1 ieee80211


I've searched for others with my problem, but all other firmware loading problems that I found did not have the line "ipw2200: ipw-2.2-boot.fw load failed: Reason -2", and none of the proposed solutions there did anything for me. I believe I have installed everything correctly, and I know that I have hotplug firmware loading and wireless networking enabled in my kernel.

Somone on another forum thought that "ipw2200: ipw-2.2-boot.fw load failed: Reason -2" meant that the firmware was in the wrong location, but I confirmed that I have the files in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware, exactly where my firmware.agent should look.

I use an HP Pavilion zt3000 notebook with an Intel centrino processor, and I am dual-booting XP pro with Red Hat 9 upgraded to a 2.6.10 kernel.

Any Suggestions? Thanks,

Matt

P.S. does anyone know why RH9 runs so slowly for me with no Internet connection?
 
Old 03-03-2005, 07:33 AM   #2
darkleaf
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http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=297021

The last post has something similar to your problem. Though you might need to modprobe -r the modules and then try again.

Does RH run fast if you have an internet connection or are you new to linux? Cause RH isn't very fast cause it uses a heavy desktop environment. Might have something to do with your computer's specs.
 
Old 03-04-2005, 12:51 PM   #3
umichLinux
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I tried what was suggested there with no result. I got the same output in dmesg, even the "reason -2" line.

Before I installled the ipw2200 driver, I did upgrade my hotplug scripts to the most current version and have noticed that my boot is different than it used to be. On startup when it loads hotplug, my screen goes blank. After a short pause it continues loading and adds lines to the bottom of the screen as if the previous text had just been cleared or something. I don't know if this is just a quirk, or if it shows that my hotplug upgrade did not go as well as I had thought. I did the upgrade via rpm, and I had to do a --force in order for it to go. I have not noticed any other problems with my hotplug, but is there a way to test the installation, especially the firmware loading?

thanks,

Matt
 
Old 03-06-2005, 11:18 PM   #4
Glock Shooter
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try removing and reloading the modules. modprobe the firmware_class first then the ipw2200 module. see if that works.

Also, what kernel are you using? The ipw2200 driver only works in the 2.6 kernel, otherwise you have to use the NDIS wrapper. And if you are using 2.6, did you enable the requried options when you compiled it?
 
Old 03-07-2005, 10:59 PM   #5
umichLinux
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I tried that and got the exact same error messages.

I'm using a 2.6.10 kernel, and I am almost positive that I have both wireless networking and hotplug firmware loading enabled. I'll check on those again, though. too, if you know of any other kernel options that I should have enabled, let me know. In my last kernel compile, I added ARC4 cypher, cripto library support, CRC32 library support, wireless networking, and firmware loading so I could get this wireless card to work.

back to darkleaf, RH runs acceptably fast when I do have an ethernet connection, but whenever I'm not plugged in it slows down a lot. Not too much of a problem since I'm almost always plugged in, but it was just something I noticed that seemed strange.
 
Old 03-25-2005, 12:26 PM   #6
mannik
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Intel pro/wireless 2200bg

Quote:
Somone on another forum thought that "ipw2200: ipw-2.2-boot.fw load failed: Reason -2" meant that the firmware was in the wrong location, but I confirmed that I have the files in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware, exactly where my firmware.agent should look.
2.6.9
ipw2200-0.18
ipw2200-fw-2.1

Last edited by mannik; 03-25-2005 at 12:29 PM.
 
Old 03-27-2005, 11:12 PM   #7
umichLinux
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Re: Intel pro/wireless 2200bg

Quote:
Originally posted by mannik
2.6.9
ipw2200-0.18
ipw2200-fw-2.1
I assume this means that you got your card working with the versions that you list . . . did you have to do anything special to get it all to work, esp. hotplug?

I have taken a short break from trying to get the card to work, but I'll resume in a bit. I think I managed to delete my hotplug scripts, so I'll have to re-install those (hopefully it will go well this time), and maybe it will mysteriously work after that.
 
Old 03-29-2005, 07:42 AM   #8
gyaresu
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I had the "ipw2200: ipw-2.2-boot.fw load failed: Reason -2" error as well.
I think I got it working by changing the kernel options:
-----------------------------------------------------
Device Drivers ---> Generic Driver Options --->

[ ] Select only drivers that don't need compile-time external firmware
[ ] Prevent firmware from being built
<*> Hotplug firmware loading support
-----------------------------------------------------

I'd had the two top ones selected and so by unselecting them perhaps that fixed it.

Of course it could have just decided that apon rebooting 'this time' it would do the right thing.

I'm sorry I don't know more about this to be of any help.

regards
 
Old 03-29-2005, 09:27 AM   #9
umichLinux
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Ok, yeah, I have those two options checked in my kernel config. Do I have to do a complete kernel rebuild and re-install to change those? I'd like to avoid a rebuild if I can because of all the extra stuff I have to do to get things working again afterwards. I've had troubles ever since I upgraded from 2.4 to 2.6, especially with hardware recognition (sound card, ATI driver, wireless card, USB storage, etc). I may just try a fresh install with a newer distro (one that already has a 2.6.x kernel) and get things working that way.
 
Old 03-29-2005, 06:19 PM   #10
gyaresu
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I don't know about RH but for Debian as you are only changing a couple of options you just need to recompile the kernel using the .config that you used with your current kernel.

I used the ipw2200-source Debian .deb package via apt-get and the firmware I just downloaded and placed in the appropriate spot. That lets me compile all the kernel modules at the same time as the kernel itself.

If RH is similar then all you should have to do is something similar to.
http://myrddin.org/howto/debian-kernel-recompile.php

$ cd /usr/src/linux
$ vi Makefile (change the extraversion)
$ make-kpkg clean
$ make oldconfig
$ make menuconfig (untick the two "[ ] Select only drivers..." "[ ] Prevent firmware..."
$ make-kpkg clean
$ make-kpkg --initrd kernel_image modules_image (compile my kernel and the modules in /usr/src/modules/)
...wait...
$ cd /usr/src
$ dpkg -i kernel-image-2.6.10-bob ipw2200-modules-2.6.10-bob
$ reboot

Because you are only changing those two options everything should be as broken as it was before except you might have wireless access.

Ubuntu has a quite a lot of participation and the www.ubuntuforums.org are very active.
 
Old 03-30-2005, 06:43 PM   #11
mannik
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Quote:
Device Drivers ---> Generic Driver Options --->

[ ] Select only drivers that don't need compile-time external firmware
[ ] Prevent firmware from being built
<*> Hotplug firmware loading support
hi

i have to select all

[ *] Select only drivers that don't need compile-time external firmware
[ *] Prevent firmware from being built
<*> Hotplug firmware loading support

the first time, i select only (* Hotplug firmware loading support) and get a erroR.
then , recompiling again.... but I selected the 3 and I did not have more problems
 
Old 03-30-2005, 08:48 PM   #12
gyaresu
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Errors?

Kernel compile errors?

Post them?
 
  


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