Wifi occasionally stops working at boot claiming a µcode error

MangoMan1 · 2022-01-17 19:18:16

For the longest time, wifi has been working on my laptop flawlessly for no issues. 2ish months ago however, I booted my laptop into a new gentoo partition I created (just to try out some personal things) and noticed that my wifi connection was no longer working. I then decided to try booting back into Arch (my standard install) and my wifi was also not working. Finally I tried booting into a Manjaro USB I had in my bag for emergencies, and that also didn't work.

I then went back into arch and ran the command:

doas dmesg | grep iwlwifi

And the output I got was:

...
[   35.818107] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: iwlwifi transaction failed, dumping registers
...
[   36.044945] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Hardware error detected. Restarting.
...
[   36.067249] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: HW error, resetting before reading
...
[   44.494165] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Microcode SW error detected. Restarting 0x0.
...

(Full output is visible here: https://paste.thomasvoss.com/104)

Since then, it has been about a 50/50 chance that my wifi will work when I log in. When it doesn't, it's always with these kinds of errors in `dmesg' and the only fix seems to be to reboot over and over until it works, or well it was. Strangely enough, I do actually get a few seconds of working wifi when I first log in, and in these few seconds if I manage to reinstall the `linux-firmware' package (or to update it if there is one available) then my wifi tends to work flawlessly for the next few boots, which I find very strange. Unfortunately though I have basically no experience in this kind of field and none of my online research has proved to be useful for me. Perhaps someone here has any pointers as to how I can go about fixing this? Unless of course the only fix here is getting a new wifi card (not sure how easy it is to replace those on modern laptops?).

Head_on_a_Stick · 2022-01-17 19:31:08

Check if the card is seated properly. Perhaps it has worked loose. Hopefully.

MangoMan1 · 2022-01-20 21:55:08

The wifi card was seated perfectly fine, just checked

tbg · 2022-01-22 10:47:43

Perhaps you should try downgrading the firmware.

seth · 2022-01-22 15:51:42

If it's not the physical connection, I'd look at powersaving - maybe disable ASPM.
But "tried booting into a Manjaro USB I had in my bag for emergencies, and that also didn't work." sounds a lot like a physical issue. Does it work w/ eg. an older grml release (to get into an older kernel and sw stack)?

Arch Linux

#1 2022-01-17 19:18:16

Wifi occasionally stops working at boot claiming a µcode error

#2 2022-01-17 19:31:08

Re: Wifi occasionally stops working at boot claiming a µcode error

#3 2022-01-20 21:55:08

Re: Wifi occasionally stops working at boot claiming a µcode error

#4 2022-01-22 10:47:43

Re: Wifi occasionally stops working at boot claiming a µcode error

#5 2022-01-22 15:51:42

Re: Wifi occasionally stops working at boot claiming a µcode error

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