Dell XPS 15 9500 i9 wifi firmware failure

mjw · 2024-01-14 12:49:21

I'm doing a fresh Arch install on a Dell XPS 9500 (getting rid of my Windows partition for some extra disk space), and can't seem to get the wifi to work.

Wifi worked fine using iwd while installing, and I since installed NetworkManager, where it also connected without issue. However after installing KDE and the usual apps, I restarted, and the computer can no longer recognise my wifi module.

The really inexplicable thing is that now that I've gotten this error, it persists when I boot onto the installation USB. I've also tried booting onto a Fedora live USB, to the exact same effect. Wifi has never been a problem when I was dual-booting Windows on this machine, so it's especially unlikely to be a hardware problem. Wifi also worked fine on Arch before re-installing.

Here's some hopefully helpful output:

ip link:

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
3: enp0s20f0u3: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 66:1d:ce:72:7a:6f brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

nmcli connection show:

NAME                UUID                                  TYPE      DEVICE      
Wired connection 1  e6432ca7-2161-3760-998d-d498e08eb64e  ethernet  enp0s20f0u3 
lo                  92f99f64-c5e8-430e-99d0-5b6a1f0885fb  loopback  lo          
FibreBox_X6-1F7117  554866cd-e139-4517-9c6d-be3c80286898  wifi      --

(The wired connection here is USB tethering to my mobile, which I'm using to submit this.)

lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 10th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6th-10th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation CometLake-H GT2 [UHD Graphics] (rev 05)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem (rev 02)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/v6 / E3-1500 v5 / 6th/7th/8th Gen Core Processor Gaussian Mixture Model
00:12.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Thermal Controller
00:13.0 Serial controller: Intel Corporation Device 06fc
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake USB 3.1 xHCI Host Controller
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Shared SRAM
00:15.0 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #0
00:15.1 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #1
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake HECI Controller
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 06b8 (rev f0)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCIe Port #6 (rev f0)
00:1c.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 06be (rev f0)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCI Express Root Port #9 (rev f0)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device 068e
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH cAVS
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH SMBus Controller
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH SPI Controller
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU117M [GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Mobile] (rev a1)
02:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
03:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
03:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
03:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
03:04.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
04:00.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 NHI [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
38:00.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 USB Controller [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
6c:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Technologies, Inc QCA6390 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
6d:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5260 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)
6e:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: SK hynix PC611 NVMe Solid State Drive

sudo dmesg | grep ath11k:

[    4.562120] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: BAR 0: assigned [mem 0xb4200000-0xb42fffff 64bit]
[    4.562143] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    4.562416] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: MSI vectors: 32
[    4.562422] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: qca6390 hw2.0
[    5.642284] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: chip_id 0x0 chip_family 0xb board_id 0xff soc_id 0xffffffff
[    5.642289] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: fw_version 0x10121492 fw_build_timestamp 2021-11-04 11:23 fw_build_id
[    8.438301] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: ignore reset dev flags 0x8000
[   15.746763] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: failed to wait wlan mode request (mode 0): -110
[   15.746769] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: qmi failed to send wlan fw mode: -110
[   15.746771] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: failed to send firmware start: -110
[   15.746773] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: failed to start firmware: -110

pacman -Qi linux-firmware

20231211.f2e52a1c-1

pacman -Qi linux

6.6.10.arch1-1

I've tried the following so far:

I added memmap=12M\$20M to the grub bootloader, following this post. It had no effect.

I switched to the linux-lts kernel, thinking it might be some recent update that broke it, but that also produced the same error. I've since switched back to the linux kernel.

I disabled wifi and bluetooth in the UEFI settings, restarted twice, and re-enabled them, to no effect.

I've ensured that secure boot is disabled, and also can't find any CSM compatability option to tinker with, following a suggestion here.

Following this wiki article, I ran

rmmod ath11k_pci

Waited 10 minutes, and ran

modprobe ath11k_pci

It produced the similar results to the original error:

[ 3413.597880] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: BAR 0: assigned [mem 0xb4200000-0xb42fffff 64bit]
[ 3413.598124] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: MSI vectors: 32
[ 3413.598129] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: qca6390 hw2.0
[ 3413.754076] mhi mhi0: Requested to power ON
[ 3413.754087] mhi mhi0: Power on setup success
[ 3414.069274] mhi mhi0: Wait for device to enter SBL or Mission mode
[ 3414.178665] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: chip_id 0x0 chip_family 0xb board_id 0xff soc_id 0xffffffff
[ 3414.178669] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: fw_version 0x10121492 fw_build_timestamp 2021-11-04 11:23 fw_build_id
[ 3416.975049] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: ignore reset dev flags 0x8000
[ 3424.385915] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: failed to wait wlan mode request (mode 0): -110
[ 3424.385919] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: qmi failed to send wlan fw mode: -110
[ 3424.385921] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: failed to send firmware start: -110
[ 3424.385922] ath11k_pci 0000:6c:00.0: failed to start firmware: -110

This at least makes the error reproducable without restarting, but I'm pretty stumped at this point. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

cgb_spender · 2024-01-15 19:20:25

It is possible that you altered some settings in your BIOS/UEFI or you updated this firmware, which can pose a serious problem for Linux installations. I would roll back to the factory-installed version of BIOS/UEFI, reset its settings to defaults, and try installing again. The fact that Fedora gives you the same error, suggests that you have a problem with BIOS/UEFI. Incidentally, the stable kernel of Arch was upgraded to version 6.7 today, so you might want to try the installation again just to test the new kernel. It's a good idea to use the timeshift package, so that you can roll back to a previous problem-free state of your Arch Linux if an update breaks something on your system. You can then wait a month and do an update again (hopefully the problem will be resolved by then). Furthermore, KDE is such a resource-intensive, unstable and buggy desktop environment, I would use something lighter, such as Cinnamon or XFCE. I hope I won't be banned for this, my optimized installation procedure for archinstall is described here (it is rather quick, that's why I am posting it).

P.S. In general, I would avoid wireless connections and stick with a wired Internet connection because Wi-Fi is not safe for the brain, no matter what the authorities tell us. There are scientific studies showing that Wi-Fi is not good for health.

Last edited by cgb_spender (2024-01-15 19:34:07)

Arch Linux

#1 2024-01-14 12:49:21

Dell XPS 15 9500 i9 wifi firmware failure

I've tried the following so far:

#2 2024-01-15 19:20:25

Re: Dell XPS 15 9500 i9 wifi firmware failure

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