ATHEROS AR9285 WLAN not working with LENOVO B560 (with ubuntu 11.04)

[adarsh_chacko]

I am using LENOVO B560 Laptop (with Ubuntu 11.04) which has ATHEROS AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter but unfortunately the wireless network does not work. This is after installing Ubuntu 11.04 with the downloaded updates.

[MaindotC]

The first place to start is the Ubuntu Wireless Troubleshooting Guide. In order for your device to work properly you need the physical connectivity (plugged in all the way and/or turned on via your machine's BIOS), a driver to communicate between the device and the operating system, and then the proper configuration of the device which typically is via DHCP. Please follow the guide and indicate at what point you are having difficulty.

[adarsh_chacko]

I tried the troubleshooter which suggested to run nm-tool in the terminal and in turn gave me an output somewhat as below:

Type: 802.11 WiFi
Driver: ath9k
State: unavailable
Default: no


I also tried rfkill list which gave me the following:

0: ideapad_wlan: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
1: ideapad_bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
2: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no

On unblocking 1 and 4 through refkill I noticed that the enable wireless option is brought up but WLAN does not work and on rebooting the system it comes to the form as shown above.

(N. B.: I have a dual OS installed in my Laptop and the WLAN works fine in the other OS (i.e. Windows 7).)

[chili555]

2: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes

This thread may be useful: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...light=acer-wmi

[adarsh_chacko]

I used the method shown in the link above. The changes I saw was that the rfkill list output changed from this...

0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
1: ideapad_wlan: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
2: ideapad_bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: yes



To this.


0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
1: ideapad_wlan: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
2: ideapad_bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no


The other change that was noticed was Enable Wireless option came up in the drop down network menu on the desktop with Wireless Networks option disabled and device not ready shown in a disabled form in the same menu.

[chili555]

To this.


0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no

If acer-wireless is still showing as soft-blocked, I suspect acer-wmi is still loaded and stopping your wireless. Is it?

lsmod | grep acer

[adarsh_chacko]

On trying

lsmod | grep acer

This is what I get (as output)

acer_wmi               23123  0 
sparse_keymap          13666  2 acer_wmi,ideapad_laptop

And after reboot rfkill list showing the same thing as below:

0: ideapad_wlan: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no
1: ideapad_bluetooth: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no
2: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: yes

The changes made in the previous attempts don't seem to stay permanently.

[chili555]

The changes made in the previous attempts don't seem to stay permanently.

Did you make the change in post #5 in the link I gave you?

[adarsh_chacko]

I didn't get you...

I meant I tried all that you had told me including the ones mentioned in the link given in post #4

This thread may be useful: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...light=acer-wmi

and the one mentioned in your last post i.e.

lsmod | grep acer

I would also like to mention that the changes done do not remain after reboot. So please suggest also a way out to keep these changes permanent. Please help.

[chili555]

Post #5 in the link I gave you asks that you blacklist acer-wmi so it doesn't load on boot. However, it did load:

On trying

Quote:
lsmod | grep acer
This is what I get (as output)

Code:

acer_wmi 23123 0
sparse_keymap 13666 2 acer_wmi,ideapad_laptop

Let's take a look at your blacklist file so that we can see what has gone wrong:

cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf