Issues with Asus U56e: Wireless does not connect, kernel stopped upgrading, runs hot

[Ubun2 gy]

Hello,

I recently purchased an Asus U56e (Intel Core i5-2410M, 6gb RAM), and the first thing I did was install Ubuntu 11.10. I have used Ubuntu on other machines for several years with varying degrees of success, and chose the U56E because it had the features I wanted and I did not find any indication that it was incompatible with Ubuntu. I currently have it triple booting along with Mint 12 and Windows 7 (eek), neither of which I really use. When I first installed, it would crash if I shut the lid or suspended it, but that I have fixed. There are three problems that I still find extremely inconvenient:

1: Wireless does not work in Ubuntu. I have tried many of the fixes suggested here, with no effect.

2: After 3.0.0-14-generic, my kernel quit upgrading. Both 3.0.0-15 and 3.0.0-16 have downloaded and installed when I upgrade, but never replaced the old one when I boot. when I type try to install 3.0.0-16 it says it is already installed and the latest version.

3: My machine runs hot, and battery life is much better in Windows. The fan runs constantly in Ubuntu, while in windows it only seems to turn on when I am doing heavy processing.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Ubun2 gy

P.S.
I think it would be nice if Ubuntu ran a little leaner in general. Compiz crashes frequently, and boot time in 11.10 is horrible compared to 11.04. Granted, I still did beat my brothers Macbook Pro nicely (26.3 seconds to 56.x seconds ).

[Ubun2 gy]

Bump!

[Ubun2 gy]

Today my brother and I figured out the kernel problem, but the other two problems remain unresolved. The kernel problem was that Mint is in control (don't ask me why) of grub, so I updated the kernel in Ubuntu and then updated grub from Mint.

[@gu79]

I guess you installed Mint last. You can solve it reinstalling grub from ubuntu (check this for more info):

sudo grub-install --recheck /dev/sdX
sudo update-grub

(replace X according to your drive, "sda" for example)

For the power issue (fans, temperature, battery life), try adding i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 as a kernel boot parameter: in the grub menu, press "e" to edit the line of Ubuntu, and then add that to the end of the line of the kernel (starting with linux).
For example: linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-16-generic <...> quiet splash vt.handoff=7 i915.i915_enable_rc6=1

If that works, you can modify grub to have it permanent:

 gksu gedit /etc/default/grub

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i915.i915_enable_rc6=1"
And update grub, sudo update-grub

They are fixing some bugs to have that as default in 12.04. Check this.

About the wireless, do you see any network at all?

[WBMachinery]

I had the same problem with the same computer enter these commands and it will be solved.

sudo modprobe -r iwlagn
sudo modprobe iwlagn bt_coex_active=0

If it worked you need to make it permanent.

To make the change permanent:

gsku gedit /etc/modprobe.d/iwl.conf

Copy/paste this line into the new file:
options iwlagn bt_coex_active=0

Save and quit.

After you do this you will experience very slow internet connection but it can be solved by making iwlag not use n and it can be done with these commands.

sudo rmmod -f iwlagn
sudo modprobe iwlagn 11n_disable=1

if you see it made a difference once again you must make it perminent..

gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/iwlagn-disable11n.conf
options iwlagn 11n_disable=1

Save and quit.
And thats all

[Ubun2 gy]

@gu79,
thanks for responding. Wireless networks show up fine, but when I try to connect it tries for a few minutes and then announces that it has failed and keeps on trying indefinitely.

I tried both of the fixes you mentioned. The grub update worked nicely, but RC6 garbled the top bar, lost my unity settings and made 1024 x 768 the only available screen resolution, so I think I will just wait until April 26th in case 12.04 has improved the power handling.

WBMachinery,
I just tried what you suggested (with gksu substituted for gsku), and it seems to have worked admirably - thank you! I did not notice it being slow after the first command, but I was not doing anything very taxing so I did the second one for good measure. I am happy to say that this post was made on wireless.



Thank you both for the help,
Ubun2 gy

EDIT: My apologies for the slow reply, the power has been out for several days here (west coast of Canada), and other power outages that did not directly affect me knocked out my Internet two or three times.

[schweet]

I had the same problem with the same computer enter these commands and it will be solved.

sudo modprobe -r iwlagn
sudo modprobe iwlagn bt_coex_active=0

If it worked you need to make it permanent.

To make the change permanent:

gsku gedit /etc/modprobe.d/iwl.conf

Copy/paste this line into the new file:
options iwlagn bt_coex_active=0

Save and quit.

After you do this you will experience very slow internet connection but it can be solved by making iwlag not use n and it can be done with these commands.

sudo rmmod -f iwlagn
sudo modprobe iwlagn 11n_disable=1

if you see it made a difference once again you must make it perminent..

gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/iwlagn-disable11n.conf
options iwlagn 11n_disable=1

Save and quit.
And thats all

The change worked, and I would like to make it permanent, but when you wrote,

"Copy/paste this line into the new file:
options iwlagn bt_coex_active=0"

I don't know what you mean by "the new file" could someone walk me through this step?

thanks

[REGELDUDES]

[QUOTE=WBMachinery;11773925]I had the same problem with the same computer enter these commands and it will be solved.

sudo modprobe -r iwlagn
sudo modprobe iwlagn bt_coex_active=0

If it worked you need to make it permanent.

To make the change permanent:

gsku gedit /etc/modprobe.d/iwl.conf

Copy/paste this line into the new file:
options iwlagn bt_coex_active=0

Save and quit. [end quote]

We did all of this and it indicated that it had connected to the wireless, but when i disconnected the Ethernet cable and it still indicated that it had connected to the wireless SSID but had no internet access. I know it isn't a problem with the modem because it works in windows fine. Please help and thanks for your efforts!

[chrisgianti]

I guess you installed Mint last. You can solve it reinstalling grub from ubuntu (check this for more info):

sudo grub-install --recheck /dev/sdX
sudo update-grub

(replace X according to your drive, "sda" for example)

For the power issue (fans, temperature, battery life), try adding i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 as a kernel boot parameter: in the grub menu, press "e" to edit the line of Ubuntu, and then add that to the end of the line of the kernel (starting with linux).
For example: linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-16-generic <...> quiet splash vt.handoff=7 i915.i915_enable_rc6=1

If that works, you can modify grub to have it permanent:

 gksu gedit /etc/default/grub

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i915.i915_enable_rc6=1"
And update grub, sudo update-grub

They are fixing some bugs to have that as default in 12.04. Check this.

About the wireless, do you see any network at all?

>>I would like to try your power solution i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 ... but I have no idea how to do what you described. I also have a u56e (mine is a bal7) with similar specs as the guy who started this question (except I only have windows 7 & ubuntu 11.04 on my machine).
Could you provide more instruction for a linux newbie?

[@gu79]

>>Could you provide more instruction for a linux newbie?

A quick reply. Let me know if you need more help.

Grub is the program that shows you the different options during boot. So, select the line that you usually select to boot into ubuntu, but instead of pressing enter, press "e". In the next screen, go to the line that starts with "linux/boot/vmlinuz..." and append to that line:
i915.i915_enable_rc6=1
Press Ctrl-x to boot.

That's not permanent, so if something doesn't work properly, just reboot.