Intel WiFi Link 5100 AGN Wireless Problem

**jgreer** · January 17th, 2011

Hello,

I am running Ubuntu 10.10 and am pretty new so I apologize if I am missing something obvious, but I've searched for a solution for quite a while now and am stumped. I have an Intel WiFi Link 5100 AGN wireless card and the drivers appear to be installed correctly, but the card is not working (not picking up any wireless networks in the main Wireless menu of the taskbar. It just says "Wireless disabled").

Anyway, all the sorts of diagnostic tests I have seen in the forums seem normal, so I'm not sure if it's just some weird activation problem (already tried 'sudo ifconfig wlan0 up'). Also, "iwlist scan" shows that the wireless is picking up vallid networks. I just can't connect, and the information is not showing up in any "GUI related" networking tool like I would expect.

Here is all the relevant diagnostic information:

lspci | grep Network

03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection

iwconfig

wlan0 IEEE 802.11abg ESSID

ff/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=15 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr

ff Fragment thr

ff
Power Management

ff

dmesg | grep iwlagn

[ 17.359780] iwlagn: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, in-tree:
[ 17.359784] iwlagn: Copyright(c) 2003-2010 Intel Corporation
[ 17.359890] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[ 17.359920] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[ 17.360003] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Detected Intel(R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN, REV=0x54
[ 17.394021] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 24 802.11a channels
[ 17.394135] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: irq 46 for MSI/MSI-X
[ 17.433943] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 8.24.2.12

iwlist scan is returning what looks to be a valid list of networks, but I'll save the space and only show the information about the network I am trying to join.

iwlist scan

Cell 03 - Address: 00:23:69

0

F:98
Channel:6
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality=70/70 Signal level=-27 dBm
Encryption key

n
ESSID:"JJGW"
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
Bit Rates:24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Mode:Master
Extra:tsf=00000000a577b7d6
Extra: Last beacon: 3208ms ago
IE: Unknown: 00044A4A4757
IE: Unknown: 010882848B960C121824
IE: Unknown: 030106
IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (2) : CCMP TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (2) : CCMP TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
IE: Unknown: 2A0100
IE: Unknown: 32043048606C
IE: Unknown: DD0900037F01010000FF7F
IE: Unknown: DD0A00037F04010002004000
IE: Unknown: DD740050F204104A0001101044000102103B00010310470010 00000000000010000000002369D0DF981021000C4C696E6B73 797320496E632E10230007575254353447321024000776312E 352E303010420001301054000800060050F204000110110007 57525435344732100800020084103C000103

uname -mr

2.6.35-24-generic i686

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

* Reconfiguring network interfaces... Ignoring unknown interface eth0=eth0.
[ OK ]

I was trying to connect via the command-line so I tried:

iwconfig wlan0 essid JJGW

but then setting the key didn't work by calling:

iwconfig wlan0 key s:*****

Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

which is weird because this is how the man page says to do it. Thanks for the help. Hope this is not information overload.

Joey

EDIT: Forgot to post wlan0 message in the log, which may be important

dmesg | grep wlan0

[ 18.809066] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 888.777388] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

**postenga** · January 19th, 2011

i got the same problem man!

**eslam** · February 3rd, 2011

almost the same problem
any suggestions

thanks in advance

**ugm6hr** · February 5th, 2011

Uncertain, but perhaps look here:
http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1672582

**eduardoconto** · February 8th, 2011

I have a similar problem with my Dell Vostro 1320. My rfkill list all output:

Code:

0: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: yes
    Hard blocked: yes

Apparently, there is no Fn+Fx key to enable/disable the modem. There is a switch to the it on/off that is on the on position.
Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

EDIT: Working with the suggestion of removing the dell-laptop module on http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1672582 have solved my problem, even though I had a software block too.

**teddybairs1** · February 26th, 2011

This might be a dumb question, but is the wireless enabled in the BIOS? I had that problem running a newly installed wifi card under Debian squeeze. It showed that everything worked, except it kept telling me that the wireless was disabled. It later dawned on me that I had disabled it in the BIOS a couple of years ago when the original wifi card quit working on me. I went into the BIOS and enabled it and everything worked fine. It was a rookie thing to do, but there you go.