[SOLVED] Wireless not working on Compaq cq50

[scorziello]

I have tried everything I have seen on the forums to get the wireless working. I have just installed 8.10 but nothing can seem to get the wireless working. I have a Compaq cq 50-215nr. It automatically selects to use the atheros driver. Any help would be appreciated.

Edit:
So to update the status here. I can get the wireless working, but I have to disable the restricted driver, reboot and then enable the driver again, and then the wireless works. I just can't get the wireless to work without doing those steps. I have tried adding "ath_pci" and "ath_hal" to "/etc/modules" and that doesn't work either. Any help would be great. Thanks in advance.

[scorziello]

So I finally figured this out on my own after poking around the forums for a few days and trying different things. I am running this wifi card btw; Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01).
What I finally figured out is that ath5k was not getting loaded at startup. So the first thing I did was add ath5k to list in my modules file.

sudo gedit /etc/modules

After doing that I added both hal_pci and ath_pci to my blacklist file.

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

I just added them to the bottom as seen below:

# This file lists those modules which we don't want to be loaded by
# alias expansion, usually so some other driver will be loaded for the
# device instead.

# evbug is a debug tool that should be loaded explicitly
blacklist evbug

# these drivers are very simple, the HID drivers are usually preferred
blacklist usbmouse
blacklist usbkbd

# replaced by e100
blacklist eepro100

# replaced by tulip
blacklist de4x5

# causes no end of confusion by creating unexpected network interfaces
blacklist eth1394

# snd_intel8x0m can interfere with snd_intel8x0, doesn't seem to support much
# hardware on its own (Ubuntu bug #2011, #6810)
blacklist snd_intel8x0m

# Conflicts with dvb driver (which is better for handling this device)
blacklist snd_aw2

# causes failure to suspend on HP compaq nc6000 (Ubuntu: #10306)
blacklist i2c_i801

# replaced by p54pci
blacklist prism54

# replaced by b43 and ssb.
blacklist bcm43xx

# most apps now use garmin usb driver directly (Ubuntu: #114565)
blacklist garmin_gps

# replaced by asus-laptop (Ubuntu: #184721)
blacklist asus_acpi

# low-quality, just noise when being used for sound playback, causes
# hangs at desktop session start (Ubuntu: #246969)
blacklist snd_pcsp

#causing ath5k not to load because of conflicts
blacklist ath_hal
blacklist ath_pci


I haven't had the time to figure out which of the two modules is causing conflict with ath5k but now when I boot up the wireless card automatically detects networks. Hope this helps some one.

[jlburky]

Thank you so much! I already spent about 4 hours on this. Everything seems to be working fine now since adding the deviced to the blacklist.

[scorziello]

No problem that is why we are called a community. Let me know if you need anything else. I will try to help you if I can.

[wisstnb]

Does not work for me. Followed the same steps, but nothing seems to work. I have the same laptop (Compaq c50)

[luks911]

Does not work for me. Followed the same steps, but nothing seems to work. I have the same laptop (Compaq c50)

Do you have the ath5k module? What do you get if you do

sudo modprobe ath5k

If you don't have the module, install linux-backports:

sudo aptitude install linux-backports-modules-intrepid

[wisstnb]

When I do "sudo modprobe ath5k" I get "FATAL: Module ath5k not found". I'm new to Linux, so please, bear with me!

I've been trying to find a solution for this for days now. Nothing seems to work.

[luks911]

That's because you have to instal linux-backports:

sudo aptitude install linux-backports-modules-intrepid

Then, yes

sudo modprobe ath5k

and then, to load the module at startup

echo "ath5k" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

Maybe you have to reboot before it takes effect.

[wisstnb]

I've just done the steps above. I rebooted, then did "sudo modprobe ath5k", but it still says "FATAL: Module ath5k not found".

By the way, when I type "sudo aptitude install linux-backports-modules-intrepid", I see "couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "linux-backports-modules-intrepid".

[luks911]

Hmmm... the ath5k module is installed with the linux-backports-modules-intrepid package, that's the first problem. Now, ¿are you using Intrepid or another version? Because in Intrepid you should be able to install the package and you shouldn't receive the message about ubuntu can't find it. Of course, you have to be conected to the internet for the instalation.

Another posibility, for Intrepid or another Ubuntu version, is to use madwifi driver instead ath5k. You have to follow the instructions below, one line each time in a terminal, also with an internet conection.

echo "blacklist ath_hal" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
sudo apt-get update && sudo aptitude install build-essential gcc binutils autoconf automake linux-headers-$(uname -r)
wget http://snapshots.madwifi-project.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3879-20081204.tar.gz
tar xzf madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3879-20081204.tar.gz
cd madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3879-20081204.tar.gz
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe -a ath_pci wlan_scan_sta
sudo ifconfig ath0 up
echo "ath_pci" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules