Comprehensive ndiswrapper troubleshooting guide

[pytheas22]

excogitation: you may have better luck if you upgrade to ndiswrapper 1.54, or if you use a different Windows driver.

Beyond that, there's a native Linux driver for Atheros USB devices in rapid development. I'm not positive that it supports your card, but it's worth a try. To install it, run these commands:

sudo apt-get install git git-core build-essential
git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mcgrof/otus.git ~/Desktop/otus
cd ~/Desktop/otus
make
sudo make install

You will also need to blacklist ndiswrapper, then reboot. If the Linux driver brings up your card, try connecting to your router with security disabled. From what I understand, this driver requires a special version of wpa_supplicant, so it won't work with WPA until that's installed. But we can deal with that once you've gotten to the point of being able to connect to unencrypted networks.

I'm not sure if this driver will work--I've yet to find anyone who can actually connect with it (if it brings up your device at all, you're kind of lucky), but it's been in rapid development and is definitely worth a try.

If none of the above helps, I guess the next step would be to switch back to ndiswrapper and try negotiating your WPA connection from the command line.

[excogitation]

excogitation: you may have better luck if you upgrade to ndiswrapper 1.54, or if you use a different Windows driver.

I will try ndiswrapper 1.54 soon.
I think I tried all available windows drivers for "0cf3:9170".

Beyond that, there's a native Linux driver for Atheros USB devices in rapid development. I'm not positive that it supports your card, but it's worth a try. To install it, run these commands:

I've stumbled upon this one when searching how to get the stick working - unfortunately it doesn't work (yet).

ndiswrapper -l
arusb_xp : driver installed
	device (0CF3:9170) present (alternate driver: arusb_lnx)

to doublecheck (it's blacklisted)

lsmod | grep ndisw

arusb_lnx module loaded

lsmod | grep arusb
arusb_lnx             439560  0

lshw -C Network
  *-network:1 DISABLED
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 2
       logical name: ath0
       serial: 00:03:7f:11:22:33
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11-MIMO

sudo iwlist scan
ath0      Interface doesn't support scanning.

dmesg
[42986.348043] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 30
[42986.548509] usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[42986.548794] bulk out: wMaxPacketSize = 200
[42986.548797] bulk in: wMaxPacketSize = 200
[42986.548799] interrupt in: wMaxPacketSize = 40
[42986.548801] interrupt in: int_interval = 1
[42986.548803] interrupt out: wMaxPacketSize = 40
[42986.548805] interrupt out: int_interval = 1

You will also need to blacklist ndiswrapper, then reboot. If the Linux driver brings up your card, try connecting to your router with security disabled. From what I understand, this driver requires a special version of wpa_supplicant,

This driver requires its own supplicant driver for wpa_supplicant 0.4.8.

wpa_supplicant -v
wpa_supplicant v0.6.6

so it won't work with WPA until that's installed. But we can deal with that once you've gotten to the point of being able to connect to unencrypted networks.

I'm not sure if this driver will work--I've yet to find anyone who can actually connect with it (if it brings up your device at all, you're kind of lucky), but it's been in rapid development and is definitely worth a try.

If none of the above helps, I guess the next step would be to switch back to ndiswrapper and try negotiating your WPA connection from the command line.

I will give ndiswrapper 1.54 a try and then I'll just wait

[mikegerard]

Thank you pytheas22

I followed your directions and reinstalled the b43 driver.
I then needed to go into system/hardware drivers and activate the driver.

Once I did that the power button on the wlan card lit up and now I'm good.

Thanks so much for your help.

I'm now thinking about putting ubuntu on my new netbook (lenovo s10) and dumping the xp that it comes with.

Mike

[excogitation]

I will give ndiswrapper 1.54 a try and then I'll just wait

No luck with 1.54 either.

[pytheas22]

Mike: glad to hear you've gotten it working Maybe it was just that your original firmware files were corrupted...hopefully it was just a strange fluke and won't happen again.

excogitation: sorry to hear that the newer version of ndiswrapper also failed. The only other thing I can think to do (besides wait for the 'otus' driver to become more stable) is to try to deal with wpa_supplicant from the command line. That way, we may be able to figure out exactly why it won't connect. But it will probably be a lot of work, so it's up to you if you want to give it a try. If you do, please start a new thread, let me know the URL and we can deal with it there (so as not to make this thread too convoluted with information that won't interest most people here).

[ssdt]

I'm getting a slow internet. Can anyone get a tutorial about how to increase the internet speeed? I'm supppposed to get 1.5 mbps for my download speed but I get about 350 KBPS.

[pytheas22]

ssdt: your question isn't directly related to ndiswrapper, so please start a new thread. I will reply there and try to help you out. In your thread, it would be useful if you provided the output of these commands:

lshw -C Network
time wget google.com
time wget 209.85.171.100
sudo iwlist scan
iwconfig

[excogitation]

excogitation: sorry to hear that the newer version of ndiswrapper also failed. The only other thing I can think to do (besides wait for the 'otus' driver to become more stable) is to try to deal with wpa_supplicant from the command line. That way, we may be able to figure out exactly why it won't connect. But it will probably be a lot of work, so it's up to you if you want to give it a try. If you do, please start a new thread, let me know the URL and we can deal with it there (so as not to make this thread too convoluted with information that won't interest most people here).

how about we use this one.

Thanks for your support.

[mjzap]

Great how to - gets me online but I am having another problem and hoping someone may have already seen this.

The card is the Linksys WMP54GX and I am running Jaunty with all the current updates. I have never tried the card in any other version as I have never needed to. I am using the current driver from the Linksys website (netani.inf) and other drivers are blacklisted.

After installing, I get the following over and over (made a 500+MB syslog file for me)


[ 633.327966] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x49737973
[ 633.327971] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x203a7273
[ 633.327976] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x6b636f4c
[ 633.327980] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x736f4c5f
[ 633.327984] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x6e695f73
[ 633.327989] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x72726574
[ 633.327993] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x20747075
[ 633.327997] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0xa30
[ 633.573200] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:190): log: C000138A, count: 8, return_address: d8f2560a
[ 633.573211] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x49737973
[ 633.573216] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x203a7273
[ 633.573220] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x6b636f4c
[ 633.573225] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x736f4c5f
[ 633.573229] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x6e695f73
[ 633.573233] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x72726574
[ 633.573238] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x20747075
[ 633.573242] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0xa30
[ 633.729003] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:190): log: C000138A, count: 8, return_address: d8f2560a
[ 633.729016] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x49737973
[ 633.729021] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x203a7273
[ 633.729025] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x6b636f4c
[ 633.729030] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x736f4c5f
[ 633.729034] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x6e695f73
[ 633.729039] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x72726574
[ 633.729043] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x20747075
[ 633.729047] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0xa30
[ 633.831831] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:190): log: C000138A, count: 8, return_address: d8f2560a
[ 633.831845] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x49737973
[ 633.831850] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x203a7273
[ 633.831854] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x6b636f4c
[ 633.831858] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x736f4c5f
[ 633.831863] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x6e695f73
[ 633.831867] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x72726574
[ 633.831872] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x20747075
[ 633.831876] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0xa30


Adapter info:

*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: AGN100 802.11 a/b/g True MIMO Wireless Card
vendor: Airgo Networks Inc
physical id: 1
bus info: pci@0000:02:01.0
logical name: wlan1
version: 03
serial: 00:12:17:aa:a3:82
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ndiswrapper+netani driverversion=1.54+Cisco-Linksys LLC.,04/13/20 ip=10.0.0.230 latency=248 link=yes maxlatency=255 mingnt=24 module=ndiswrapper multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11g


Current output from ndiswrapper -l:

netani : driver installed
device (17CB:0001) present


I could probably just not write the error to the log but that would just be cheating : ) So any help would be greatly appreciated!

[pytheas22]

mjzap: I googled a bit but couldn't find anything that really explains why you get those lines spammed in the logs. Most other people in that situation had cards that wouldn't work at all under ndiswrapper, so it's interesting that you report yours functioning without a problem despite the warnings.

I think the messages might actually be related to something the Windows driver is doing, rather than ndiswrapper itself; if that's the case, you might be able to avoid the spam by switching to a different Windows driver (if alternatives exist). Otherwise, your only option might be to work around the issue by telling ndiswrapper not to write to the log (I'm not sure if there's an easy way to do that), or by writing a cronjob to cut those lines out of your log in order to reduce the file size (if you need help doing that, I could probably figure it out with you).