Centrino 1030 Wifi-N woes

[gangaskan]

hi everyone! first time poster and i just recently converted my laptop (compal FL90) and i'm happily using ubuntu 64

however, one thing i have problems with is the wifi. i installed a Intel 1030N for wifi + bluetooth, however, as of recently i've been encountering issues with it actually connecting to AP's even when they're in the same room. i have a Cisco 1200 LWAPP just about on top of me at work and i do see SSID's but when i try to connect it asks me for encryption key's again. same with my house, cisco 851W in the same room. i also had a netgear N router with DDWRT at one point and i had the same problems.

sometimes it works, sometimes the wifi vanishes (the network widget disappears from the menu bar) at this time i can still see Wlan0


it was working flawless until i started messing with the Sonicwall Netextender. thats when i really noticed something wrong. i couldnt get it to work and on accident removed LIBSSL.0.9.8 and CRYPTO.0.9.8 i was able to restore them from the lib's under the live disk, and its been up and running very well other than wifi.


ive seen others have luck with upgrading their kernel to 2.6.38 (perhaps i think some were at 10.04 at the time though), turning off power save options, and removing networkmanager.state


what can i do to fix this?
if you need me to post up anything like iwconfig, lspci or whatever let me know.

[praseodym]

Hi,

please show:

lsb_release -a
uname -a
lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
iwconfig
lsmod
dmesg | grep iwl

If the card is "too new" install a new driver version and/or firmware:

Firmware:

wget http://media.cdn.ubuntu-de.org/forum/attachments/2767012/Intel_Firmware.tar.gz
sudo tar xvf Intel_Firmware.tar.gz -C /lib/firmware

Driver:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential dkms
wget http://www.orbit-lab.org/kernel/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless-2.6.tar.bz2
tar jxvf compat-wireless-2.6.tar.bz2
cd compat-wireless-20*
make clean
make
sudo make install

Reboot.

If you update the driver, you may need to compile again after a kernel upgrade:

cd compat-wireless-20*
make clean
make
sudo make install

[gangaskan]

here are my outputs.


lsb_release -a

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 11.04
Release: 11.04
Codename: natty

uname -a
[quote]
Linux mobilekan 2.6.38-11-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP Mon Sep 12 21:17:25 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
[/quote


lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net

04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1693] (rev 02)
Subsystem: COMPAL Electronics Inc Device [14c0:0025]
Kernel driver in use: tg3
--
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1030 [8086:008a] (rev 34)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1030 BGN [8086:5305]
Kernel driver in use: iwlagn

iwconfig

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSIDff/any
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.442 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=15 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff

vboxnet0 no wireless extensions.

lsmod

Module Size Used by
hidp 22572 0
hid 91020 1 hidp
binfmt_misc 17565 1
vboxnetadp 13340 0
vboxnetflt 28297 0
vboxdrv 252684 2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt
parport_pc 36959 0
ppdev 17113 0
vesafb 13761 1
joydev 17606 0
snd_hda_codec_realtek 336771 1
nvidia 10709116 53
arc4 12529 2
snd_hda_intel 33176 2
iwlagn 333716 0
snd_hda_codec 103804 2 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep 13604 1 snd_hda_codec
uvcvideo 72195 0
rfcomm 47694 15
videodev 82052 1 uvcvideo
v4l2_compat_ioctl32 17078 1 videodev
sco 18187 2
bnep 18308 2
l2cap 53570 19 hidp,rfcomm,bnep
btusb 18600 3
snd_pcm 96391 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
iwlcore 167502 1 iwlagn
bluetooth 72320 10 hidp,rfcomm,sco,bnep,l2cap,btusb
mac80211 294370 2 iwlagn,iwlcore
microcode 22702 0
snd_seq_midi 13324 0
snd_rawmidi 30486 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 14899 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 61621 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
compal_laptop 19971 0
cfg80211 178528 3 iwlagn,iwlcore,mac80211
snd_timer 29602 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 14462 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
psmouse 73535 0
serio_raw 13166 0
snd 67382 13 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec, snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,sn d_seq_device
soundcore 12680 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 18529 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
video 19438 0
lp 17825 0
parport 46458 3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp
ahci 25951 2
sdhci_pci 13989 0
firewire_ohci 40370 0
firewire_core 62646 1 firewire_ohci
sdhci 27387 1 sdhci_pci
crc_itu_t 12707 1 firewire_core
libahci 26642 1 ahci
tg3 141750 0

dmesg | grep iwl

[ 12.596361] iwlagn: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, in-tree:
[ 12.596365] iwlagn: Copyright(c) 2003-2010 Intel Corporation
[ 12.596506] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[ 12.596516] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[ 12.596552] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Centrino(R) Wireless-N 1030 BGN, REV=0xB0
[ 12.612204] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: device EEPROM VER=0x716, CALIB=0x6
[ 12.612208] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: Device SKU: 0X9
[ 12.612211] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: Valid Tx ant: 0X1, Valid Rx ant: 0X3
[ 12.663929] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 0 802.11a channels
[ 12.664026] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: irq 49 for MSI/MSI-X
[ 12.691763] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: loaded firmware version 17.168.5.2 build 35905
[ 12.767567] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-agn-rs'
[ 226.884070] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: restoring config space at offset 0xf (was 0x100, writing 0x10a)
[ 226.884108] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: restoring config space at offset 0x4 (was 0x4, writing 0xf8000004)
[ 226.884117] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: restoring config space at offset 0x3 (was 0x0, writing 0x10)
[ 226.884129] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: restoring config space at offset 0x1 (was 0x100000, writing 0x40100106)

[praseodym]

Looks good, I think compiling is not needed. Update the driver via:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-cw-2.6.39-natty-generic

and reboot. Check:

iwconfig
sudo iwlist scan
iwlist chan
dmesg | grep iwl

[gangaskan]

i'm getting unable to locate packages errors.


E: Unable to locate package linux-backports-modules-cw-2.6.39-natty
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'linux-backports-modules-cw-2.6.39-natty'

[praseodym]

Do you have any connection? If no, here are the needed packages:


http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/po...1.26_amd64.deb

http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/po...11.7_amd64.deb

Install them by double clicking and reboot.

[gangaskan]

yeah, i'm on Ethernet right now. i'll try the packages here in a few.

[gangaskan]

Do you have any connection? If no, here are the needed packages:


http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/po...1.26_amd64.deb

http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/po...11.7_amd64.deb

Install them by double clicking and reboot.

installed the packages and everything went well, however, still unable to connect to a SSID. i can see them, it asks me for encryption, and nothing afterwards.

[praseodym]

Does your router send in b+g+n mode? Intel deactivated N-mode per default, better choose b+g mode in your router.

Maybe you can activate the N-mode via:

echo "options iwlagn 11n_disable=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/iwlagn.conf
sudo modprobe -rf iwlagn
sudo modprobe -v iwlagn

but normally you need a newer kernel for that.

[gangaskan]

Does your router send in b+g+n mode? Intel deactivated N-mode per default, better choose b+g mode in your router.

Maybe you can activate the N-mode via:

echo "options iwlagn 11n_disable=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/iwlagn.conf
sudo modprobe -rf iwlagn
sudo modprobe -v iwlagn

but normally you need a newer kernel for that.

no N on my router, just B/G would that matter?