Marvell® Atheros® AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter NOT TURNING ON!!!

[meathdeath]

hello ubuntuforum users,
this is my very first post so sorry if im a little off my rocker in the way that i post but i am wondering if you can help me with my problem. when i flip the wifi switch on my sony VPCEB32FM laptop the light does not come on and ubuntu has no "enable wireless" option on the internet icon at the top right side of the panel. i was wondering if anybody has had the same or similar issue and how you fixed it thank you for replying..
meathdeath

[afixane]

1. Search for a wired network
2. Open "Additional Driver" from unity, or "jockey-gtk" from terminal
3. Click Install blablabla

[meathdeath]

1. Search for a wired network
2. Open "Additional Driver" from unity, or "jockey-gtk" from terminal
3. Click Install blablabla

thank you for the quick reply...
i tried that... no proprietry driver are in use on my system.. the thing all of the sudden wont turn on even thought it was working for the past couple weeks without a problem. i tried to run a live cd of ubuntu 12.04 (same distro im on) and the wireless worked. i dont know what this means but im thinking il have to reinstall ubuntu and i dont like that. is there a work around? im on a laptop and so its a pain in the ***.

[Mark Phelps]

Unfortunately, laptop hardware uses specialized drivers for which, all too often, there is no Linux equivalent. The wireless "buttons" tend to fall into this category.

So, if you get wireless working once you reinstall, you may have no way to disable the wireless from Ubuntu. That's one of the major downsides of Linux distros -- lack of specialized drivers.

[meathdeath]

thank you for your reply Marc Phelps..
i still think i will continue to use my ethernet cable until someone comes along with a really brilliant idea that none of us have come up with yet. i just wish i could reinstall Ubuntu without losing my stuff i have saved on my hard drive. i have several Gb on my laptop and it would be a pain to go and redownload/setup all of the stuff i have done on my distro so far.

[meathdeath]

***EDIT
The wireless switch was functional until recently so im afraid your theory is incorrect.

[wildmanne39]

Hi, welcome to the forum! Please open a terminal ctrl+alt+t copy and paste the following commands into it one line at a time, then paste the results here:

cat /etc/lsb-release; uname -a
lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
lsusb
iwconfig
rfkill list all
lsmod

by clicking on new reply and click # and paste the information between the brackets.
Thank you

[Mark Phelps]

***EDIT
The wireless switch was functional until recently so im afraid your theory is incorrect.

Not necessarily ...

I had a Tablet PC with specialized hardware "buttons" -- which also worked, until there was a kernel upgrade. After that, they never worked again. And, I tried different Ubuntu versions for several years before giving up.

So, just like you, I had hardware buttons that worked, for a while, and then, stopped working.

[meathdeath]

Hi, welcome to the forum! Please open a terminal ctrl+alt+t copy and paste the following commands into it one line at a time, then paste the results here:

cat /etc/lsb-release; uname -a
lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
lsusb
iwconfig
rfkill list all
lsmod

by clicking on new reply and click # and paste the information between the brackets.
Thank you

tyler@Delorian:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release; uname -a
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.04 LTS"
Linux Delorian 3.2.0-25-generic #40-Ubuntu SMP Wed May 23 20:30:51 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
tyler@Delorian:~$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002b] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. T77H126.00 802.11bgn Wireless Half-size Mini PCIe Card [105b:e017]
Kernel driver in use: ath9k
--
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Yukon Optima 88E8059 [PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Controller with AVB] [11ab:4381] (rev 11)
Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device [104d:9071]
Kernel driver in use: sky2
tyler@Delorian:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0c45:6409 Microdia Webcam
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 1d38:08aa
tyler@Delorian:~$ iwconfig
Command 'iwconfig' is available in '/sbin/iwconfig'
The command could not be located because '/sbin' is not included in the PATH environment variable.
This is most likely caused by the lack of administrative privileges associated with your user account.
iwconfig: command not found
tyler@Delorian:~$ rfkill list all
Command 'rfkill' is available in '/usr/sbin/rfkill'
The command could not be located because '/usr/sbin' is not included in the PATH environment variable.
This is most likely caused by the lack of administrative privileges associated with your user account.
rfkill: command not found
tyler@Delorian:~$ lsmod

this is the results of the code you told me to enter... what does it mean? im an absolute noob... and thank you for your time mr. Phelps but im fairly sure youre not understanding exactly what im saying. thanks for the replies guys

[wildmanne39]

Hi, well most of those commands did not work and that does not make since.

Please try this and see if your wireless comes on make sure the button to the wireless card is on before you paste the command into the terminal.

sudo rmmod -f sony-laptop

do not reboot.
Thanks