Ubuntu 12.04 beta2 issues with Ralink RT2800 PCI loses connection

[neilhuang]

Hi,

I just upgraded from 10.04 LTS to 12.04 Beta 2.
The wireless card I have in my PC is Ralink RT2800 802.11n PCI. This card functioned fine back in 10.04 as it rarely dropped connection and had a very fast and stable transfer speed.

Once I've moved to 12.04 Beta 2 (kernel 3.2.0-23 so far), the wireless card works but every now and then would start dropping all the packets. The connection status is still connected to my AP, but I can't ping... I can't look up DNS, etc.

It still shows the list of AP's around, so I wonder if the scan is working fine, or maybe it could have been the cached list from when the wireless was working...

The easy way to fix it is to click on network-manager and disconnect from the AP, and reconnect to the AP. Once it reconnects, things will be working again.

It's pretty annoying.

I'm not sure what diff it will make between b2 and the actual 12.04 release, but since this is specific to the driver, I have a feeling the only way for me to get back the driver that was in 10.04.

Questions:

1. The driver objects are here:

neilhuang@neilhuang-desktop:~$ modprobe -l | grep rt2800
kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2800lib.ko
kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2800pci.ko
kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2800usb.ko

Does that mean the drivers are compiled and installed with the kernel?
I know I can do modprobe -r [driver], which means the drivers are pluggable modules. But do the modules exist within the same kernel (3.2.0-xx vs 2.6.32-yy) source?

2. If the above question is true, is there anyway for me to find the original rt2x00 drivers that came with the 2.6.32 kernel (aka ubuntu 10.04) and somehow modprobe it back to the current kernel? (because the ubuntu 10.04 drivers were stable for me)

3. Where can I find logs for the wireless drivers' so I can hopefully see what's happening when packets start to drop?

Thanks and I hope the above questions make sense. I'm not much of a kernel/driver level guy, heh. Mostly just application level dev for me as my day job.

[jawilljr]

Try turning off power management:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off

Jerry

[neilhuang]

Thanks. Will give it a try.

[neilhuang]

Try turning off power management:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off

Jerry

Sorry, this doesn't seem to help. Thanks anyway.
Any other ideas?

[benhurtuna]

@neilhuang I have a same problem with Ralink RT2800. Did you found any solution?

[neilhuang]

Not yet I'm constantly hitting it, especially during heavy data tx/rx...

Does anyone have experience with driver modules?

[neilhuang]

I found out that "Modules from one kernel can't be loaded into another kernel" so that throws my idea out the window...

I'm kind of lost as to how to debug and contact the right resources to help fix this bug...

[BJCV86]

Not yet I'm constantly hitting it, especially during heavy data tx/rx...

Does anyone have experience with driver modules?

I think this is my experience as well. It goes fast, than stops. Using RT2800. I don't know how to install anything new and nothing else is in the U.S.C.

[neilhuang]

I did some of my own research and playing around and I think I found a solution. Long story short, I had to rebuild the drivers and reload them into the kernel. I learned something doing this so I figured I can share the process with you guys. Here goes.

1. Download the driver from Ralink's website:
   http://www.ralinktech.com/en/04_supp...ort.php?sn=501
   Click on ra2860 link and download.
2. Extract the archive using either a combination of bunzip + tar or just use archive manager for ease.
3. At this point you would have the directory "2010_07_16_RT2860_Linux_STA_v2.4.0.0" extracted. You can view the README_STA file or just follow what I did here.
4. From the README:
   

   ** Build for being controlled by NetworkManager or wpa_supplicant wext functions
   Please set 'HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y' and 'HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y'.

   so

   vim os/linux/config.mk

   (or gedit)
   and change the two lines accordingly.
5. run make from the prompt.
   If 5 fails, make sure you have the build-essential package.

   sudo apt-get install build-essential

6. Copy the new dat AND ko file to a directory for safekeeping.
   

   sudo mkdir -p /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/
   sudo cp RT2860STA.dat  /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/
   sudo cp os/linux/rt2860sta.ko /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/

7. To test to see if this new driver module works, you need to try to insert it into the Kernel and then remove the old one.
8. Removing old modules:
   

   sudo modprobe -r rt2800pci

   At this point, your wireless network would disconnect. If you want to reconnect using the old module, simply run.
   
   

   sudo modprobe rt2800pci

9. Inserting new module:
   

   sudo insmod /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/rt2860sta.ko

10. Verify the module is loaded:
    

    neilhuang@neilhuang-desktop:/etc/Wireless/RT2860STA$ lsmod | grep rt
    rt2860sta             864748  1 
    parport_pc             32866  1 
    parport                46562  3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp

11. At this point, your network-manager should pick up your old Access point and your internet would work again.
    
    You may want to add this to your kernel so that this new compiled driver would load everytime.
    I found the instruction from another thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1369806), but it applies here so I'll show you what I did more in depth than the thread above.
12. Make a staging area for your wireless driver. Note that 3.2.0-23 may change per kernel update.
    

    sudo mkdir -p /lib/modules/3.2.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860

13. Make a soft link pointing to your made driver.
    

    sudo ln -s /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/rt2860sta.ko /lib/modules/3.2.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/rt2860sta.ko
    sudo ln -s /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat /lib/modules/3.2.0-23-generic/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/RT2860STA.dat

14. Re-scan the kernel drivers
    

    sudo depmod

15. Verify that the driver is now in the list of modprobe:
    

    neilhuang@neilhuang-desktop:/lib/modules/3.2.0-23-generic$ modprobe -l | grep 2860
    kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/rt2860sta.ko

16. Blacklist original driver so it doesn't conflict
    

    sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

    or
    

    gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

    Add the following lines:
    

    # Removing old rt2800 buggy generic drivers
    blacklist rt2800pci

17. Restart your computer and run step 15 again to see it working. And check again with this:
    

    neilhuang@neilhuang-desktop:~$ lsmod | grep 2860
    rt2860sta             864748  1

So just for future reference... I think steps 12-15 may be needed to be repeated per each kernel update.


Also, note that my card is actually

TRENDnet TEW-623PI

and according to the wiki I find that I can use the 2860 driver. YMMV so make sure to read up on your individual cards before attempting this.

[bearman83]

I got the same issue with my linksys wmp600n where it loaded the rt2800 instead of the rt2860 driver, and this solved my problems.

Thanks a bunch!