WLAN disabled if LAN (RJ45) link present [SOLVED]

Wild Penguin · 2026-07-11 18:21:32

Hi,

For some reason, my WiFi is hard blocked (HW disabled) if I connect any LAN device.

I have used to be able to use both at the same time. The last time I did, I have upgraded the WiFi chip from the terrible Mediatek MT7921 to an Intel AX210, and also installed a WWAN chip (not used so far). My guess is that either this is a (very annoying!) regression / oversight in newer NetworkManager, or the AX210 can not be used for some reason while the LAN is connected. While the MT7921 is a bit flaky, at least I used to be able to use both WiFi and LAN at the same time.

But I don't use the LAN that often, and when I do, I need to use both at the same time!

The setup details:
- P14s Gen3 AMD
- Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411
- Using NetworkManager

After connecting a LAN device, NetworkManager show the radio as HW disabled! Any ideas what's goind on? Is the AX210 somehow limited in this regard?

$ nmcli
lo: connected (externally) to lo
        "lo"
        loopback (unknown), 00:00:00:00:00:00, sw, mtu 65536
        inet4 127.0.0.1/8
        inet6 ::1/128

enp6s0: disconnected
        "Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411"
        2 connections available
        ethernet (r8169), 84:A9:38:F3:C0:B0, hw, mtu 1500

enp2s0f0: unavailable
        "Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411"
        ethernet (r8169), 84:A9:38:F3:C0:B1, hw, mtu 1500

wlp3s0: unavailable
        "Intel 6E AX210/AX1675* 2x2"
        wifi (iwlwifi), 56:EA:CA:EE:35:07, sw disabled, hw disabled, hw, mtu 1500

p2p-dev-wlp3s0: unavailable
        "p2p-dev-wlp3s0"
        wifi-p2p, sw disabled, hw disabled, hw

PCI devices:

$ lspci 
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne Root Complex
00:00.2 IOMMU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne IOMMU
00:01.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:02.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.3 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.5 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.6 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne PCIe GPP Bridge
00:02.7 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne PCIe GPP Bridge
00:08.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
00:08.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir Internal PCIe GPP Bridge to Bus
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 51)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 51)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 0
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 5
00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 6
00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Cezanne Data Fabric; Function 7
01:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Micron Technology Inc 2300 NVMe SSD [Santana]
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0e)
02:00.1 Serial controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111xP UART #1 (rev 0e)
02:00.2 Serial controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111xP UART #2 (rev 0e)
02:00.3 IPMI Interface: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111xP IPMI interface (rev 0e)
02:00.4 USB controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL811x EHCI host controller (rev 0e)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6E(802.11ax) AX210/AX1675* 2x2 [Typhoon Peak] (rev 1a)
04:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS522A PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)
05:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Quectel Wireless Solutions Co., Ltd. EM120R-GL LTE Modem
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
07:00.0 USB controller: Renesas Electronics Corp. uPD720202 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 02)
08:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Cezanne [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series] (rev d1)
08:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Renoir/Cezanne HDMI/DP Audio Controller
08:00.2 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir/Cezanne Platform Security Processor
08:00.3 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne USB 3.1
08:00.4 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir/Cezanne USB 3.1
08:00.5 Multimedia controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Audio Coprocessor (rev 01)
08:00.6 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Ryzen HD Audio Controller

The Ethernet controller (I'm not sure if it's actually this one or under 02:* - seems like the same chipset is some kind of a PCIe bridge):

$ lspci -v -s 06:*
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
        Subsystem: Lenovo Device 5094
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 113, IOMMU group 18
        I/O ports at 2000 [size=256]
        Memory at fd504000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Memory at fd500000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: r8169
        Kernel modules: r8169

The WiFi device:

$ lspci -v -s 03:*
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6E(802.11ax) AX210/AX1675* 2x2 [Typhoon Peak] (rev 1a)
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX210 160MHz
        Physical Slot: 0
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 93, IOMMU group 15
        Memory at fd800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
        Kernel modules: iwlwifi

Last edited by Wild Penguin (2026-07-11 19:13:02)

seth · 2026-07-11 18:48:59

After connecting a LAN device, NetworkManager show the radio as HW disabled!

Some rj45 jacks on notebooks act as rfkill switch - maybe that also depends on the wifi chip. What's the output of

rfkill

after plugging the cable?
There also tends to be a UEFI option for that behavior.

In addition NM can rfkill the WIFI on ethernet access but I doubt that's the problem here.

Just fyi

lspci -knnd ::02xx

Wild Penguin · 2026-07-11 19:08:15

After plugging in the cable [bold]and a link present[/bold] (maybe this is not important, but powering off the device at the device at the other end enables WiFi again):

$ rfkill
ID TYPE      DEVICE                   SOFT      HARD
 0 bluetooth tpacpi_bluetooth_sw   blocked unblocked
 1 wwan      tpacpi_wwan_sw      unblocked unblocked
 2 nfc       nfc0                unblocked unblocked
 4 wlan      phy0                unblocked   blocked

So wlan gets blocked. This definitely was not the case with the MediaTek device.

By UEFI option, you mean BIOS options on the laptop? I have not changed any, but I will check.

If this is indeed a H/W limitation, I'd be interested to know as to why, and which chips do not have this limitation.

Wild Penguin · 2026-07-11 19:12:47

It was indeed a BIOS option!

My guess is that either a BIOS updated reset some options or (less likely, but I suppose possbile) BIOS reset the option when the WiFi card was changed.

Marking as [SOLVED]!

seth · 2026-07-11 19:15:14

By UEFI option, you mean BIOS options on the laptop?

Yes.

I'd be interested to know as to why, and which chips do not have this limitation.

It's probably considered more a feature than a bug to automagically switch interfaces (regardless of OS *cough* windows *cough*)

Edit: too late…

Last edited by seth (2026-07-11 19:15:38)

Arch Linux

#1 2026-07-11 18:21:32

WLAN disabled if LAN (RJ45) link present [SOLVED]

#2 2026-07-11 18:48:59

Re: WLAN disabled if LAN (RJ45) link present [SOLVED]

#3 2026-07-11 19:08:15

Re: WLAN disabled if LAN (RJ45) link present [SOLVED]

#4 2026-07-11 19:12:47

Re: WLAN disabled if LAN (RJ45) link present [SOLVED]

#5 2026-07-11 19:15:14

Re: WLAN disabled if LAN (RJ45) link present [SOLVED]

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