Help with Atheros AR5001 with Ubunutu 10.04

[dhblewis]

I have a samsung N310 (GO) Notebook and installed Ubuntu on it. I used to have fedora but decided to move.

Everything is working perfectly except the wireless. I can connect to the network but it is very buggy & drops connections frequently.

Details from lspci

Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. Device e00c
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
Memory at f0100000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ath5k
Kernel modules: ath5k

[GSF1200S]

I have a samsung N310 (GO) Notebook and installed Ubuntu on it. I used to have fedora but decided to move.

Everything is working perfectly except the wireless. I can connect to the network but it is very buggy & drops connections frequently.

Details from lspci

Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. Device e00c
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
Memory at f0100000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ath5k
Kernel modules: ath5k

It appears you are not alone (assuming you are using 10.04). The following link has a patched kernel that has worked for some, but not for others- might want to take a look at the thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1466201

[Ian Ferguson]

The patched kernel didn't work for me either, but installing Madwifi did. This thread tells you how. Though it was written for Karmic, it works for Lucid too.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1309072

[zuperman1]

This may help someone. I have Atheros AR5001 and I have managed to make my wifi work with the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo modprobe acer-wmi

and it worked for a wile, but after I've updated the kernel, wifi stopped working. After some good hours of research I found that the problem is how the drivers are loaded. It has to be first acer-wmi and then ath5k.
So this are the commands that worked:

sudo modprobe -rv ath5k
sudo modprobe acer-wmi
sudo modprobe -v ath5k

and I've put this in the /etc/rc.local so I don't have to put this commands every time I restart my computer.

[Ian Ferguson]

I may have spoken a bit too soon when I said that Madwifi worked. It's certainly an improvement on what I had before, but my wifi still has an annoying habit of losing the connection, and the only way I can get it back is to reboot.

I've tried Zuperman1's solution, but on entering the command

sudo modprobe acer-wmi

I get

WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper, it will be ignored in a future release.
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, it will be ignored in a future release.
FATAL: Error inserting acer_wmi (/lib/modules/2.6.32-21-generic/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/acer-wmi.ko): No such device

[lapor]

I have similar problem. After putting my Toshiba to sleep... I cannot connect to wifi. It just tries to connect, but doesn't. After couple of sleep/waking up, it connects.

[khunphil]

This may help someone. I have Atheros AR5001 and I have managed to make my wifi work with the following commands:It has to be first acer-wmi and then ath5k.
So this are the commands that worked:

sudo modprobe -rv ath5k
sudo modprobe acer-wmi
sudo modprobe -v ath5k

Thanks, after trying Madwifi without success, trying new kernel that will freeze my laptop, this is the most useful post I read.
For the moment, this works, and if the problem appears again, I will let a note on this forum.
I dont know how you find this, but if this is one of the reason why this card does not work good, the answer is so easy that I am surprised nobody saw it before.
Fingers crossed,
Thanks
Philippe

[khunphil]

... and 1 day after, include reboot, this still works ... not as fast as Ethernet but really good ... I've lost so many weeks looking for the right answer.
Philippe

[LousticLou]

Thank you, Zuperman1 !!!
I've spent days trying to enable Wifi on an Amilo 1718, without any success, and your simple lines of code have solved it in a minutes.

[bigfootnmd]

I had the same exact problem with my Acer Aspire One A0751h in 10.04. However, I switched to 10.10 NBR and the problem does not exist at all. This is because 10.10 has NATIVE Atheros drivers.
With 10.10 there is no need to install backports or the NDSWRAPPER and windows drivers.

You can check this by downloading Ubuntu 10.10 NBR and making a startup USB. Boot off of the USB and let 10.10 load. You should be immediately told that Wireless networks are available and you can then select your WIFI connection and put in your key.

Under 10.10 with the included Atheros drivers I discovered that when using WPA shared pass key encryption that things work better with AES rather than TKIP. Also, my signal strength (at least as far as Network manager is concerned) has increased from the average of 45% to 70%. My Netbook connects every time. Lastly the WIFI inicator LED on my Netbook lights up and flashes like a Christmas tree light.

Please understand that I am providing this information as an alternative to the methods for 10.04 and in no way intend to demean the good Doctor or this solution under 10.04.

Good luck.