DWA-131 Ver b Frm/w 2.00

[revelias]

I've been a general Ubuntu user for about two years now and consider myself to have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Now long story short, I recently purchased a D-link DWA-131 usb wifi adapter on the promise that it would work right out the box. Turns out that this is both true and false. It seems that D-link revised this model at some point and while the old version does work out the box the new one does not.
Not to be dissuaded I searched the forums and found numerous post on how to get this device running. Unfortunately none of them was directly on point nor did following their directions help. The best that I have been able to accomplish is getting the network manager to show that wireless signals were available but that the device was not ready or that that the firmware was missing. This of course lasted only until I rebooted my machine.
Can anyone help me with this issue.
I am currently running Ubuntu 12.04.

[chili555]

Please open a terminal and run and post:

lsusb

Thanks.

[revelias]

The result of lsusb is
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 2001:330d D-Link Corp.

fyi. I checked the USB_IDS file and my version of DWA-131 is not listed but the previous version is.

[chili555]

ID 2001:330d D-Link Corp.

I can't find any way to get this going. We might try ndiswrapper. Did you get a disk of Windows drivers with the device?

This appears to be a very new device. Let's blaze new trails!

[revelias]

Yes, it came with a disc that has Win XP, Vista, and 7 drivers.

[kurt18947]

Thanks for posting this. I've recommended this adapter in the past as 'just works'. Mine does. It looks like I should temper this in the future. I hate it when manufacturers substantially change a device (I'd certain consider changing chipsets/firmware a substantial change) and keeps the model designation.

[wadelius]

I've got this adapter as well, and have been trying to get it to work with my 12.10 installation. I've found that a dlink adapter with the same VID and PID is included in the compat-wireless source (rtl8192cu) for kernel 3.8.

So I upgraded to kernel 3.8 from as instructed on http://handytutorial.com/install-lin...u-12-10-12-04/

After upgrading I ran

sudo modprobe rtl8192cu

. lsmod the gives:

jwad@jwad-LENOVO3000-V100:~$ lsmod | grep 8192
rtl8192cu              67488  0 
rtl8192c_common        47737  1 rtl8192cu
rtlwifi                70250  1 rtl8192cu
mac80211              541819  5 rtl8192cu,rtl8192c_common,iwl3945,rtlwifi,iwlegacy

So the module shows up together with my old wireless iwl3945.

But when plugging it in and trying iwconfig the only wireless than shows up is the old one.

Any suggestions? Is my assumption that compat-wireless 3.8 is included in standard kernel 3.8 correct?

[chili555]

The trick, of course, is whether the new kernel's version of rtl8192cu actually covers your device.

modinfo rtl8192cu | grep 330D

And you can get the old driver iwl3945 to not load by blacklisting it.

sudo su
echo "blacklist iwl3945" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
modprobe -r iwl3945
exit

What was not working about your Intel? Mine works beautifully in every respect.

[wadelius]

The trick, of course, is whether the new kernel's version of rtl8192cu actually covers your device.

modinfo rtl8192cu | grep 330D

And you can get the old driver iwl3945 to not load by blacklisting it.

sudo su
echo "blacklist iwl3945" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
modprobe -r iwl3945
exit

What was not working about your Intel? Mine works beautifully in every respect.

My intel card works well, but I want to make better use of my n-network at home.

Wow, you guys have really tried a lot of stuff, too bad the ndiswrapper solution does not work.

Meanwhile I have done my best to destroy my system . I did a major misreading and mistook my 2001:330d for the 2001:3309 in the most recent compat-drivers source code for rtl8192cu. To find out what chip is powering the adapter I opened it, and it is indeed a rtl8192cu chip.

I then thought, hey, why not try to add the VID PID to the driver and hope? So to test this I changed the 3309 to 330D and installed the drivers from source. After a reboot the connected dwa-131 lights up, but I have no grapics .

In recovery mode root console iwconfig shows 2 wireless devices! So finally it is recognised, and hopefully working. So the question is now, how do I restore the graphics? Any pointers would be very welcome!

[chili555]

Graphics is a question for General Help. You might see a clue in:

cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep EE

Does the device do more than light up? Does it connect??