Wireless Anoyances

[davbeck]

My wireless connection keeps reseting. I have a Motorola wireless G Brodcom desktop pci card. It works right out of the box, but every couple of minutes I loose connection (and the ability to connect) for a couple of minutes. It seems to me the problem is in the fact that it shares the same extension as my wired card. they are both ethx, And they keep switching from 0 to 1. is there anyway to change the extension of one of them?

please and thank you.

[Dark_MaGe]

broadcom cards have a better support on our 2.6.22 kernel and 3.4 final and be edition will both have mac80211 support that should make things goes faster and better you can have a try and download both firmware and kernel from our overlay...don't forget also to get wpa_supplicant and update networkamanger and knetworkmanger

[Stupot]

I'm having annoyances with my wireless network as well. I have an atheros internal card that is detected perfectly and can see tons of networks. It has issues connecting to my current WEP protected wireless. I managed to get it to connect (twice in total) and used it for a while. The first time it worked fine until I shut my laptop down. The second time, it worked for a couple of hours, then it stopped working and now it doesn't see the network at all. When I reboot into Windows XP it sees it just fine though. And still in Sabayon, I can see a bunch of other networks, just not mine! Crazy, I tell you. CRAZY

[davbeck]

first you should post some more info. There may (and usually is) a known problem with a particular model or brand, as Linux in general struggles the most with driver support.

second there are a few tools that can help you and your wireless.

first run (and post if you need further help) "iwconfig" as root.

that will show all of your network extensions (typically 3, your wired, your wireless, and your localhost) and your wireless extension will have a bunch of information about it. Check if your wireless card has a wireless essid, it probably won't.

If it doesn't, use that wireless extension and run the command "iwconfig wlan0 essid any" where wlan0 is the wireless extension (eth0 ra0 wlan0 eth1). you can use the essid of your preferred network simply by putting quotes around it but first just check if you can pick up one without actually telling anything to your computer.

now rerun iwconfig and see if you now have an essid.
you can also do "iwlist wlan0" where wlan0 is your wireless extention, for a list of networks in your area.



running "iwconfig wlan0 essid any" will often fix the problem right out, but if it doesnt' post back with the output of iwconfig and ifconfig.

[Stupot]

I did what you said, but I didn't see a change.

First time I ran iwconfig I got this:

Code: Select all

lo        no wireless extensions.

wifi0     no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:""  Nickname:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:0 dBm   Sensitivity=1/1
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=0/70  Signal level=-99 dBm  Noise level=-99 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:56387  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

eth0      no wireless extensions.



So...I ran iwconfig ath0 essid any

then, running iwconfig ath0, I got

Code: Select all

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:""  Nickname:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.432 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:2 Mb/s   Tx-Power:16 dBm   Sensitivity=1/1
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=20/70  Signal level=-78 dBm  Noise level=-98 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:59955  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0


...still no essid.

Here's the output of my ifconfig:

Code: Select all

ath0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:90:96:B1:F4:B4
          inet6 addr: fe80::290:96ff:feb1:f4b4/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:A0:D1:D9:5F:D2
          inet addr:192.168.0.103  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::2a0:d1ff:fed9:5fd2/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:18459 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:8697 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:25898178 (24.6 Mb)  TX bytes:839149 (819.4 Kb)
          Interrupt:19 Base address:0x2000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

wifi0     Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-90-96-B1-F4-B4-18-8E-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:62017 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:5299
          TX packets:577 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:199
          RX bytes:5769570 (5.5 Mb)  TX bytes:26286 (25.6 Kb)
          Interrupt:17


[Stupot]

So, I just noticed that even though it doesn't show up on my Network Manager, it still shows up on the Wifi manager (however, the link to switch to the network is unclickable).

And then...it just showed up on the Network-manager list, so I clicked it and it seems like it was gonna work...and then...the Knetwork Manager icon is still in the corner, but I clicked it, it says that Network Manager is not running (which I obviously started back up to make this post).

I am running 3.4 Loop3, so it's not a very outdated network manager.

Edit: and when it started back up, it doesn't see my network again.

I guess that since the wifi manager can see it and the network manager can't, it's really more of a network manager problem than hardware?

[davbeck]

could you also post the hardware specs? especially chipset.
"lspci" should give you the chipset. also is it laptop or desktop card.

[Stupot]

It's a laptop (Toshiba Satellite most specifically).

Code: Select all

# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc R200 AGP Bridge [Mobility Radeon 7000 IGP] (rev 05)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc PCI Bridge [IGP 340M]
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc OHCI USB Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc OHCI USB Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc EHCI USB Controller (rev 01)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SMBus (rev 18)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc Dual Channel Bus Master PCI IDE Controller
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 434c
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 4342
00:14.5 Multimedia audio controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP150 AC'97 Audio Controller
00:14.6 Modem: ATI Technologies Inc IXP AC'97 Modem (rev 01)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility 7000 IGP
02:04.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 02)
02:07.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)


[WarraWarra]

You have a working atheros card / module / driver.
Just have to get it to start at boot ?

1st make sure you have a working dns in " /etc/resolv.conf " should be looking similar to "nameserver 24.555.666.777 " with obviously your isp dns server ip's in there.

Next:
Restart and then as root "lsmod" and see if atheros module is there.
Do not load anything before checking this.

If not it is not loading at boot and can be added to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 should just be "atheros" (check spelling) , might even see "vboxdrv" for virtualbox there.

Next "eselect rc list" and see if there is a "net.wlan0 default " or something like this might be "net.ath0 default " or "net.ath0 boot" ?

If not "rc-update add net.ath0 default" replacing the net.ath0 with your correct naming for the wifi could be net.wlan0 or net.eth1 as well.

Once this is complete restart and see how it runs.

I have had to use the button on the laptop to active the wifi as this can sometimes stop it from working. wifi = active but light = off until SL loads the wifi thingy's then the light = on.

Check my info against this link to be 100% sure.
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/h ... art1_chap3

hope this helps.

[Stupot]

Well, I'm actually not going to be using that particular internet connection anymore...as of now. And my laptop's wireless has no problems connected to any non-protected wireless, which is what I'm currently using. So, I don't really have a problem any more and I can't really test to see how to fix the problem. It was a very weird problem though.