Wireless card stops working and seems "unplugged" / card not present

roogy · 2015-09-02 18:06:29

Hi everyone,

I experience a strange problem with my wireless card (Intel iwl4965). Randomly, it stops working completely and dmesg is full of repeating messages like

pciehp 0000:00:1c.1:pcie04: Card present on Slot(3)
pciehp 0000:00:1c.1:pcie04: Card not present on Slot(3)

After it stops working, it also not present on lspci any more. Only rebooting the system (no matter if cold or warm) can bring it to life again. Reloading modules does not help, nor does rfkill affect the problem.

Further information:
Thinkpad X61s
Kernel 4.1.6-1-ARCH

Kind regards
Michael

frank604 · 2015-09-03 02:32:17

Can you try booting with pcie_ports=compat in boot command line? Do you also have power saving to your wifi card? If yes, try disabling them.
Can you try to compile without the module and manually load it instead?

roogy · 2015-09-03 12:06:47

Hi frank604,

thank you for your advice. I tried booting with the suggested option "pcie_ports=compat" which now leads to a different behaviour: the card still randomly stops working, but throws lots of messages. See http://pastebin.com/RCXeSMqH for the trace. In short: it reports a problem on the card, a firmware reload / hardware restart of the card is triggered, then we have a kernel oops with a trace. After this, as already known, the card cannot be brought back to life without restarting the system.

Power saving was also disabled with no success.

What I now consider is: could this really be a hardware problem, e.g. the card being damaged? Or even the mainboard itself?

I already opened the thinkpad and switched the card to the second pcie-slot, but this does not work at all due to rfkill being hardlocked then (I suspect this is caused by a lacking rfkill switch for the second slot, which is originally designated for wwan in other configurations of the system than mine).

To be honest, the last time I compiled a kernel by myself is 10 years ago and I feel a bit uncomfy about the idea on my productive computer. I need this machine for work, so for the moment I am on a USB-wifi-dongle, but this can't be the end of the story.

Kind regards and thank you for your support!
Michael

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-03 20:25:33

roogy wrote:

could this really be a hardware problem, e.g. the card being damaged? Or even the mainboard itself?

Check by loading up a live ISO.

roogy · 2015-09-03 22:13:01

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Check by loading up a live ISO.

Good suggestion. I am currently running Linux Mint (kernel 3.16.0) off a flashdrive for testing. IT WORKS perfectly without the wifi card crashing.

So it seems like there is a problem with the iwl4965 driver module in the current Arch linux kernel 4.1.6?!
What to do now? :-/

Kind regards
Michael

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-04 07:05:46

Does Mint have any module options applied for that driver?

Have you tried the LTS kernel?

roogy · 2015-09-04 15:02:59

Hi Head_on_a_Stick,

the LTS kernel seems to solve the problem for the moment, will report further after testing!
Thank you!

Kind regards
Michael

roogy · 2015-11-30 16:54:25

Hi all,

the problem persists with new kernel series, e.g. also 4.2.5-1-ARCH is affected.

Does this mean I have to stick to "old" LTS-kernels for the rest of the life (of this computer)?

Kind regards
Michael

Arch Linux

#1 2015-09-02 18:06:29

Wireless card stops working and seems "unplugged" / card not present

#2 2015-09-03 02:32:17

Re: Wireless card stops working and seems "unplugged" / card not present

#3 2015-09-03 12:06:47

Re: Wireless card stops working and seems "unplugged" / card not present

#4 2015-09-03 20:25:33

Re: Wireless card stops working and seems "unplugged" / card not present

#5 2015-09-03 22:13:01

Re: Wireless card stops working and seems "unplugged" / card not present

#6 2015-09-04 07:05:46

Re: Wireless card stops working and seems "unplugged" / card not present

#7 2015-09-04 15:02:59

Re: Wireless card stops working and seems "unplugged" / card not present

#8 2015-11-30 16:54:25

Re: Wireless card stops working and seems "unplugged" / card not present

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