IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

white-raven · 2006-10-08 03:09:08

I have a Toshiba Satellite M30 laptop with an IPW2100 wireless card in it (I think). It seems that Arch detects my card as being a 2200. I installed the 2100 drivers and tried rebooting loading either the 2100 or the 2200 drivers. it seems that ifconfig will detect my wireless card as eth1, but iwconfig shows no wireless extensions, which makes me think that neither driver is doing the job. Here's some configuration info:

rc.conf

#
# /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux
#

#
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# LOCALIZATION
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# LOCALE: available languages can be listed with the 'locale -a' command
# HARDWARECLOCK: set to "UTC" or "localtime"
# TIMEZONE: timezones are found in /usr/share/zoneinfo
# KEYMAP: keymaps are found in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps
# CONSOLEFONT: found in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts (only needed for non-US)
# CONSOLEMAP: found in /usr/share/kbd/unimaps
# USECOLOR: use ANSI color sequences in startup messages
#
LOCALE="en_US.utf8"
HARDWARECLOCK="localtime"
TIMEZONE="Canada/Eastern"
KEYMAP="us"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
USECOLOR="yes"

#
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# HARDWARE
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# Scan hardware and load required modules at bootup
MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes"
# Module Blacklist - modules in this list will never be loaded by udev
MOD_BLACKLIST=(ipw2200)
#
# Modules to load at boot-up (in this order)
#   - prefix a module with a ! to blacklist it
#
MODULES=(ipw2100)
# Scan for LVM volume groups at startup, required if you use LVM
USELVM="no"

#
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# NETWORKING
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
HOSTNAME="<hostname>"
#
# Interfaces to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each interface then list in INTERFACES
#   - prefix an entry in INTERFACES with a ! to disable it
#   - no hyphens in your interface names - Bash doesn't like it
#
# Note: to use DHCP, set your interface to be "dhcp" (eth0="dhcp")
#
lo="lo 127.0.0.1"
#eth0="eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255"
#eth0="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(lo)
#
# Routes to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each route then list in ROUTES
#   - prefix an entry in ROUTES with a ! to disable it
#
#gateway="default gw 192.168.0.1"
ROUTES=(!gateway)
#
# Enable these network profiles at boot-up.  These are only useful
# if you happen to need multiple network configurations (ie, laptop users)
#   - set to 'menu' to present a menu during boot-up (dialog package required)
#   - prefix an entry with a ! to disable it
#
# Network profiles are found in /etc/network-profiles
#
NET_PROFILES=menu

#
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# DAEMONS
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
#   - prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it
#   - prefix a daemon with a @ to start it up in the background
#
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng !hotplug !pcmcia network netfs crond)


# End of file

Wireless network profile loaded from menu on restart:

#----
# The following sample contains the bare minimum working wireless
#  profile.  Other options are commented below.  Copy this script
#  and modify for a working profile.
#----
DESCRIPTION="<description>"
# Wireless:
INTERFACE="eth1"
#
# Interface options (same as in rc.conf) - either dhcp or paramters for ifconfig
# IFOPTS="dhcp"
IFOPTS="192.168.1.77 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255"
#
# Wireless ESSID (extended network name)
ESSID="<essid>"


# This value is free-form, used for informational scripts
# INFO="Sample Wireless Profile"
#
# Network/Domain ID
# NWID=""
#
# Mode [[Ad-Hoc, Auto, Managed, Master, Repeater, Secondary, Shared]]
MODE="Managed"
#
# Frequency or Channel of Wireless Radio
# FREQ=""
# CHANNEL=""
#
# Signal Sensitivity
# SENS=""
#
# TX/RX Bit Rate
# RATE="auto"
#
# Encryption Key (see `man iwconfig` for extended information
KEY="<key>"
#
# RTS Threshold
# RTS=""
#
# Fragmentation Threshold
# FRAG=""
#
# Misc Parameters for iwconfig
# PARAMS=""

Here's what I get from ifconfig:

eth1      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr <mac address>  
          inet addr:192.168.1.77  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          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:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

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)

Any ideas? I'm hoping I don't need to download and setup these drivers myself, that always leads to unforseen slowdowns.

Pacman's copy of the nvidia drivers didn't work upon install and I had to compile a new kernel before the source drivers would compile due to a gcc version conflict. Could my different kernel build be causing other pacman drivers/firmware to misbehave? I'm pretty sure I built the same kernel version with (almost) exactly the same config as shipped with Arch, (but, as I said, a newer version of gcc).

iphitus · 2006-10-08 03:19:25

kernel includes the drivers for this, you dont need to install them yourself. only thing you need to do for either a ipw2200 or 2100 is pacman -S ipw2100-fw or ipw2200-fw

James

white-raven · 2006-10-08 16:56:35

That's just the thing. I have pacman'ed the 2100 driver, but iwconfig is still not recognizing any wireless extensions on eth1, my wireless card.

Any ideas as to what the problem could be?

Sigi · 2006-10-08 17:06:06

is there a message regarding this issue in dmesg?

white-raven · 2006-10-08 19:50:32

I rebuilt my kernel with ipw2100 built-in and 2200 not supported (attempting to force "against" lspci and lshwd's incorrect detection of a 2200 card).

I looked in /var/log/errors.log and I found that the 2200 drivers had attempted to load (because of whatever arch uses for device auto detection, I assume), but couldn't find the module (because I didn't build it, I assume):

Oct  4 08:54:42 raven-3 ipw2200: ipw2200-bss.fw request_firmware failed: Reason-2
Oct  4 08:54:42 raven-3 ipw2200: Unable to load firmware: -2
Oct  4 08:54:42 raven-3 ipw2200: failed to register network device

Looking for references to ipw2100, I found:

Oct  7 19:11:30 raven-3 ipw2100: version magic '2.6.16-ARCH SMP preempt 686 gcc-4.1' should be '2.6.16-ARCH SMP preempt 686 gcc-4.0'

I noticed that over 180 lines of errors.log containe this "version magic" error.

What is version magic, and why is it causing problems in loading a new kernel that I compiled?

Anyway, with my new kernel build eth1 still shows up in ifconfig, but with no wireless extensions according to iwconfig, so I assume the 2100 driver is "working" to some extent. Still don't know how to solve this one on my own though :-(

white-raven · 2006-10-10 13:10:13

Okay, I got the version magic messages to go away.

I tried compiling a kernel with the ipw2100 compiled in only (no ipw2200), and I got no error messages, but I only got the sot of driver-exists/copyright message in messages.log. Then I compiled a kernel with the 2200, but not the 2100, this time I got messages stating that an ipw2200 was detected, and then a failure message:

messages.log

... ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
... ipw2200: probe of 0000:020a.0 failed with error -5

errors.log

... ipw2200: ipw-2.4-boot.fw load failed: Reason -2
... ipw2200: Unable to load firmware: -2
... ipw2200: failed to register network device

In looking online I'm convinced that my Toshiba M30 ships with an ipw2100 card, not 2200. I think what is happening is that Linux is detecting my 2100 card as a 2200 card. So when I compile in 2100 support, it doesn't utilize it (because it doesn't "see" a 2100 card), and when I compile in 2200 support it fails because it's the wrong card.

Is there any way of "forcing" linux to redetect my card, or trick it into thinking that it detects a 2100 card?

Please help. Thanks :-)

Damnshock · 2006-10-10 14:42:08

Gotta that problem with my laptop: toshiba m30-801

Make sure you have the firmware in:

/lib/firmware/ipw2100-1.3.fw
/lib/firmware/ipw2100-1.3-i.fw
/lib/firmware/ipw2100-1.3-p.fw
/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/ipw2100-1.3.fw
/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/ipw2100-1.3-i.fw
/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/ipw2100-1.3-p.fw

Don't know why but arch doesn't search on the right place, so I had to copy from one place to the other ( don't remember which was the right )

Hope this helps you

white-raven · 2006-10-10 15:09:42

Thanks for the tip. Sounded promising, but it didn't work.

I found the firmware in /lib/firmware, and there was not hotplug directory in /usr/lib so I created hotplug/firmware and copied the three files you mentioned. Used the kernel with 2100 built-in instead of 2200, but no luck. I think the auto-detection is still looking for 2200 firmware though because it's not ACTUALLY detecting a 2100 card. Perhaps a fix in hwd/lshwd needs to be put into place before this will work?

iphitus · 2006-10-11 01:17:13

Dont compile ipw2x00 into the kernel, it cannot load the firmware when you do this.

Damnshock · 2006-10-11 08:12:09

Iphitus is right

You can also try to compile without wireless suport and then try the drivers from the sources. Sometimes strange things happens... you know

white-raven · 2006-10-11 15:01:13

I followed the instructions to install the 80211 and ipw2100 modules and firmware. However, now if I attempt to modprobe ipw2100, I get this:

WARNING: Error inserting ieee80211_crypt (...): Invalid module format
WARNING: Error inserting ieee80211 (...): Invalid module format

Any idea what could be wrong?

white-raven · 2007-12-05 14:32:34

Okay, so here's a return to newbie land. I stopped using Arch on this (now somewhat old) laptop, and recently installed and updated a fresh copy of Arch, and, wouldn't you know it, the specs list with an ipw2100 card was for the wrong model: I HAVE BEEN USING A IPW2200 ALL ALONG!

Anyway, I'm now running into the same problem (same dmesg error messages) mentioned here, here, and here. However, these fixes didn't work:

- I added 'irqpool' to /boot/grub/menu.lst
- I made sure 'autoload' and 'firmware' (replaced 'fw' with 'firmware', though I doubt it makes a difference) were in HOOKS in mkinitcpio.conf
- I removed 'net' from HOOKS in mkinitcpio.conf

I wanted to try this fix, but I couldn't find either executable it references on my system, and I'd like to avoid manually compiling UDev if that's not the problem.

Here's the strangest thing about it: the following command make wireless extensions on eth1 start (seemingly) perfectly:

# rmmod ipw2200
# rmmod ieee80211
# modprobe ipw2200
# ifconfig eth1 up

I think that there is an "order of operations" issue as to when the firmware attempts to load itself, but I can't figure out what's going on. In rc.conf MOD_AUTOLOAD is "yes" and "ipw2200" is listed under MODULES, but "ieee80211" is not (however, I find them both loaded when I login, though not working).

Any suggestions?

white-raven · 2007-12-10 15:07:48

I don't mean to be pushy at all, but can no one provide any insight on this issue?

Arch Linux

#1 2006-10-08 03:09:08

IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#2 2006-10-08 03:19:25

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#3 2006-10-08 16:56:35

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#4 2006-10-08 17:06:06

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#5 2006-10-08 19:50:32

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#6 2006-10-10 13:10:13

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#7 2006-10-10 14:42:08

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#8 2006-10-10 15:09:42

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#9 2006-10-11 01:17:13

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#10 2006-10-11 08:12:09

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#11 2006-10-11 15:01:13

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#12 2007-12-05 14:32:34

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

#13 2007-12-10 15:07:48

Re: IPW2100/IPW2200 Networking problem

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