[SOLVED] WIFI connection drops every couple of min (Atheros QCA6174)

mjb · 2016-12-18 08:37:18

Hi everyone,

I recently bought a Dell XPS 15 (9550) Laptop, which comes with a Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac wireless network adapter. WIFI works out of the box with NetworkManager, but it loses its connection to the router every 5-30 minutes or so. Other laptops and smartphones work absolutely fine. So the router should not be the problem.

Some info about the network adapter

Everytime my wifi connection drops, this is what dmesg says:

$ dmesg
[22692.750775] wlp2s0: deauthenticated from 34:31:c4:77:9e:82 (Reason: 6=CLASS2_FRAME_FROM_NONAUTH_STA)
[22692.837879] wlp2s0: authenticate with 34:31:c4:77:9e:82
[22692.891446] wlp2s0: send auth to 34:31:c4:77:9e:82 (try 1/3)
[22692.893616] wlp2s0: authenticated
[22692.896153] wlp2s0: associate with 34:31:c4:77:9e:82 (try 1/3)
[22692.902396] wlp2s0: RX AssocResp from 34:31:c4:77:9e:82 (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=2)
[22692.905867] wlp2s0: associated
[22692.952134] wlp2s0: AP 34:31:c4:77:9e:82 changed bandwidth, new config is 2447 MHz, width 2 (2437/0 MHz)
[22693.001133] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: firmware crashed! (uuid b74d9d5b-7912-4f2b-961d-f559d884bc1f)
[22693.001160] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: qca6174 hw3.2 target 0x05030000 chip_id 0x00340aff sub 1a56:1535
[22693.001166] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: kconfig debug 0 debugfs 1 tracing 0 dfs 0 testmode 0
[22693.002638] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: firmware ver WLAN.RM.2.0-00180-QCARMSWPZ-1 api 4 features wowlan,ignore-otp,no-4addr-pad crc32 75dee6c5
[22693.003312] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: board_file api 2 bmi_id N/A crc32 6fc88fe7
[22693.003318] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: htt-ver 3.26 wmi-op 4 htt-op 3 cal otp max-sta 32 raw 0 hwcrypto 1
[22693.005382] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: firmware register dump:
[22693.005390] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [00]: 0x05030000 0x000015B3 0x009860FA 0x00955B31
[22693.005396] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [04]: 0x009860FA 0x00060730 0x00000004 0x0040E8A0
[22693.005401] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [08]: 0x00498110 0x00955A00 0x0000000B 0x00400000
[22693.005407] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [12]: 0x00000009 0x00000000 0x00952CD0 0x00952CE6
[22693.005412] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [16]: 0x00952CC4 0x0091080D 0x00000000 0x00000000
[22693.005417] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [20]: 0x409860FA 0x0040E7E8 0x00000000 0x0041E0DC
[22693.005422] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [24]: 0x800B5A1D 0x0040E848 0x000FFFFF 0xC09860FA
[22693.005428] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [28]: 0x809B3230 0x0040E948 0x00000018 0x004313DC
[22693.005433] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [32]: 0x809B2992 0x0040E998 0x0040E9BC 0x00429548
[22693.005438] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [36]: 0x8091D252 0x0040E9B8 0x00000000 0x00000001
[22693.005443] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [40]: 0x809FF05D 0x0040EA68 0x0043A380 0x00429C10
[22693.005448] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [44]: 0x809FCFDB 0x0040EA88 0x0043A380 0x00000001
[22693.005453] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [48]: 0x80911210 0x0040EAD8 0x00000010 0x004041D0
[22693.005458] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [52]: 0x80911154 0x0040EB28 0x00400000 0x00000000
[22693.005464] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: [56]: 0x8091122D 0x0040EB48 0x00000000 0x00400600
[22693.094885] ieee80211 phy0: Hardware restart was requested
[22695.489869] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: device successfully recovered

These modules are loaded:

$ lsmod | grep ath
ath10k_pci             45056  0
ath10k_core           282624  1 ath10k_pci
ath                    28672  1 ath10k_core
mac80211              667648  1 ath10k_core
cfg80211              495616  3 mac80211,ath,ath10k_core

The output of lspci:

$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [168c:003e] (rev 32)
	Subsystem: Bigfoot Networks, Inc. Device [1a56:1535]
	Kernel driver in use: ath10k_pci
	Kernel modules: ath10k_pci

The firmware is installed:

$ ls /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/
board-2.bin  board.bin  firmware-4.bin  notice_ath10k_firmware-4.txt
$ ls /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw2.1/
board-2.bin  board.bin  firmware-5.bin  notice_ath10k_firmware-5.txt

What I found so far

I found a lot of similar issues in the Arch and Ubuntu forums but they are usually very old and the solution is just installing the newest firmware. I checked my firmware version. The MD5 sums of my firmware are the same as the ones of the files downloaded from github (recommended in the kernel wiki). So the solutions from this, this and this topic do not apply to my situation.

I also tried deactivating IPv6, disabling ufw and replacing "board.bin" in my firmware folders with "board-2.bin" but to no effect.

Any help is highly appreciated!

Update: I solved the issue by deactivating the "WiFi Coexist" option in my FritzBox router which apparently switches from 40MHz to 20MHz every time it detects too many 40MHz routers nearby. This makes the ath10k firmware crash (my old laptop and my phone handle those switches nicely).

Last edited by mjb (2016-12-22 20:30:55)

Arch Linux

#1 2016-12-18 08:37:18