Atheros ar928x working...

[hwfa]

Hi,

After 10 days of hard work and headaches, I got my Atheros ar928x wireless card working. I hope this thread can help others:

Summary:
- I have an Atheros ar928x wireless card (see below for "lspci" output), and I got it working by doing what Volanin says in post #5 in the thread
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=874097. It worked for me in 32bit and now in amd64.

<major snip>

Volanin's post now says:
#####################################
OUTDATED!!!
Check the new instructions here!
#####################################

The word "here" is a link to
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...62&postcount=3

which says "This is OLD and OBSOLETE. Please don't use it!" underlined and in huge red letters.

Help!

Please.

I have a new Acer Aspire 5738 with the AR928X WiFi adapter. Windows Vista (came on the machine) finds my LAN immediately but I really want to get it working on Ubuntu. The "Ubuntu" machine has *no* internet access unless it can use that wireless connection so I can't do anything like "apt get ...". I'll have to download something via a different (wireless, Windows) machine, copy it to a USB stick and copy from that into Ubuntu. Or use Ubuntu to copy from Vista's file system after downloading via Vista on the Acer.

How, please?

[pytheas22]

hwfa: please post the output of these commands so I can have a better idea of your situation:

lspci -nn
lshw -C Network
uname -rm
sudo iwlist scan
dmesg | grep -e ath -e wlan

You can save the output of the commands into a text file (Applications>Accessories>Text Editor) and either transfer that file into Windows using a USB drive or CD, or save it directly to your Windows file system from Ubuntu (you can open the Windows partition under the Places menu). That should make it easier to upload the output here.

[hwfa]

hwfa: please post the output of these commands so I can have a better idea of your situation:

lspci -nn
lshw -C Network
uname -rm
sudo iwlist scan
dmesg | grep -e ath -e wlan

You can save the output of the commands into a text file (Applications>Accessories>Text Editor) and either transfer that file into Windows using a USB drive or CD, or save it directly to your Windows file system from Ubuntu (you can open the Windows partition under the Places menu). That should make it easier to upload the output here.

Please everybody accept my apologies for wasting your time. I was running from a live CD and had been advised that if this couldn't find my wLan then a real installation wouldn't either. Turns out this is not true. I took the plunge and installed Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex and, of course, it found my WLan immediately. It even retains the connection after hibernation.

So, thanks for the help and patience and, once more, sorry.

[pytheas22]

So, thanks for the help and patience and, once more, sorry.

Not a big deal; glad to here you've sorted it out. It actually is a bit surprising that your wireless didn't work on the live CD but works fine on a real installation--that doesn't make too much sense--but if it works, so much the better.

[geruetzel]

hi, i am having troubles with my atheros card as well (ar928x).
the signal of my router is really bad when i connect, the net is very slow and the connection dies very often (even when i sit next to the router) on my other laptop it works well.
i have tried different things which all did not work for me:

*installing the win drivers with ndiswrapper
*802.11G only (no n)
*encryption off
*rate 54M

here's all information:

ubuntu 9.04
kernel 2.6.28-11-generic i686

4:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002a] (rev 01)

  *-network             
       description: Wireless interface
       product: AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       logical name: wmaster0
       version: 01
       serial: 00:22:5f:87:78:e8
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k latency=0 module=ath9k multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn

wlan0     Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:22:B0:8C:C3:55
                    ESSID:"brunnernet"
                    Mode:Master
                    Channel:7
                    Frequency:2.442 GHz (Channel 7)
                    Quality=65/100  Signal level:-78 dBm  Noise level=-120 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    IE: Unknown: 000A6272756E6E65726E6574
                    IE: Unknown: 010882848B0C12961824
                    IE: Unknown: 030107
                    IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
                        Group Cipher : CCMP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    IE: Unknown: 2A0100
                    IE: Unknown: 32043048606C
                    IE: Unknown: DD0900037F01010020FF7F
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                              11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
                              48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Extra:tsf=000000004f518f58
                    Extra: Last beacon: 64ms ago

~$ dmesg | grep -e ath -e wlan
[    3.860312] device-mapper: multipath: version 1.0.5 loaded
[    3.860314] device-mapper: multipath round-robin: version 1.0.0 loaded
[   10.419714] ath9k: 0.1
[   10.419753] ath9k 0000:04:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[   10.419764] ath9k 0000:04:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   10.855757] phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'ath9k_rate_control'
[   10.887520] Registered led device: ath9k-phy0:radio
[   10.887535] Registered led device: ath9k-phy0:assoc
[   10.887551] Registered led device: ath9k-phy0:tx
[   10.887565] Registered led device: ath9k-phy0:rx
[   44.537647] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[   60.698012] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55
[   60.712319] wlan0: authenticated
[   60.712323] wlan0: associate with AP 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55
[   60.719778] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55 (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=2)
[   60.719781] wlan0: associated
[   60.742798] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
[   70.952098] wlan0: no IPv6 routers present
[  110.703465] wlan0: No ProbeResp from current AP 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55 - assume out of range
[  113.605093] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55
[  113.613259] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55
[  113.812171] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55
[  114.012151] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55
[  114.212183] wlan0: authentication with AP 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55 timed out
[  129.600407] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55
[  129.601935] wlan0: authenticated
[  129.601940] wlan0: associate with AP 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55
[  129.605004] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:22:b0:8c:c3:55 (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=2)
[  129.605009] wlan0: associated

[kungfoofool]

I'm having the same issue as geruetzel. I've got an ASUS K40A1-IN with a similar setup and while it's booted into Vista there are no problems connecting to the wireless AP. In Ubuntu 9.04, the connection unexpectedly drops and occasionally will not connect at all. Occasionally it does connect, and I can't determine what causes the oddity.

The AP has no encryption, does not filter by MAC, etc.

[pytheas22]

geruetzel and kungfoofool: recompling the wireless driver using a more recent version of the source code may help you. To do that, go to http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6 and download the file named "compat-wireless-2.6.tar.bz2." Save it to your desktop. Then run these commands:

tar -xjvf compat-wireless-2.6.tar.bz2
cd compat-wireless*
make
sudo make unload
sudo make load
sudo make install

Then reboot and please let me know if it helps. If not, we can try other things.

[geruetzel]

thank you, but as i had problems with my ati-card/chip too (which really were unsolveable) i decided to install vista again. this decision was not easy but everything works fine now.

[kungfoofool]

pytheas22:

I ran into the following after running sudo make load:

Loading ipw2100...
Loading ipw2200...
Loading libertas_cs...
Loading usb8xxx...
Loading p54pci...
Loading p54usb...
Loading adm8211...
Loading zd1211rw...
Loading rtl8180...
Loading rtl8187...
Loading p54pci...
Loading p54usb...
Loading iwl3945...
Loading iwlagn...
Loading ath...
FATAL: Module ath not found.
Loading ar9170usb...
FATAL: Module ar9170usb not found.
Loading rtl8180...
Loading rtl8187...
Loading rt2400pci...
Loading rt2500pci...
Loading rt61pci...
Loading rt2500usb...
Loading rt73usb...
Loading rndis_wlan...
Loading at76_usb...
Loading mwl8k...
FATAL: Module mwl8k not found.
Loading mac80211_hwsim...
FATAL: Module mac80211_hwsim not found.
Loading at76c50x_usb...
FATAL: Module at76c50x_usb not found.
./scripts/load.sh: line 20: athload: command not found
./scripts/load.sh: line 22: b43load: command not found
make: *** [load] Error 127

I went ahead & ran make install to see what would happen, and it's doing pretty much the same thing. Here's the log from /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log:

Failed to disable WPA in the driver.
Failed to initiate AP scan.
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS 
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS 
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS 
Trying to associate with 00:09:5b:d5:1f:9c (SSID='tankgroup' freq=2442 MHz)
Association request to the driver failed
Authentication with 00:09:5b:d5:1f:9c timed out.

dmesg doesn't give much useful information:

[   55.806971] wlan0: deauthenticating by local choice (reason=3)
[  112.712036] wlan0: deauthenticating by local choice (reason=3)

lspci:

05:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)

lshw:

           *-network
                description: Wireless interface
                product: AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
                vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
                logical name: wlan0
                version: 01
                serial: ***
                width: 64 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
                configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k latency=0 module=ath9k multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn

I appreciate your help. Any other advice?

[kungfoofool]

I turned WEP 128-bit encryption back on, and now it connects without a problem. In find that puzzling, but at this point I'm just happy not to be tethered.

Another oddity is that I haven't had this problem with other AP's, (e.g., coffee cafes), so maybe it was something weird about the access point? Heck if I know.