Arch Linux

zoxir

Member

Registered: 2011-02-17

Posts: 17

rt2860sta channel issue

First of all hello to everyone.
I have an hp mini cq10-500ev with an RT3090 wireless card. I blacklisted the rt2800 and rt2x00 modules and wireless worked fine exept one little problem the card scans only for 11 channels instead of 13 (I live in Europe ). At first I thought this would have a really simple solution but I haven't found anything related to this that could help.
My kernel is this 2.6.37-ARCH.
The module loaded is rt2860sta.
The network manager is wicd.
What i've tried was to edit /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and change the country entry, nothing.
then i installed iw and tried to use reg set still nothing. I get this message "nl80211 not found"

If anyone anyone has a suggestion or some idea or can point me to some article or tutorial that can help I would be grateful because Arch has been working verry well an my netbook and I really really really don't want to remove it. I have to connect to an AP that broadcasts on channel 12 at work so if I don't find a solution soon then I will have to install something else.

PS sorry for the poor english.

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: rt2860sta channel issue

Install crda. No guarantee it'll work but that is the package that handles this stuff.

oupsemma

Member

Registered: 2010-01-01

Posts: 70

Re: rt2860sta channel issue

Use iwconfig for that (ifconfig doesn't work for tweaking rt2860 parameters):

[oupsemma@archeee ~]$ sudo iwconfig --help
Usage: iwconfig [interface]
                interface essid {NNN|any|on|off}
                interface mode {managed|ad-hoc|master|...}
                interface freq N.NNN[k|M|G]
                interface channel N
                interface bit {N[k|M|G]|auto|fixed}
                interface rate {N[k|M|G]|auto|fixed}
                interface enc {NNNN-NNNN|off}
                interface key {NNNN-NNNN|off}
                interface power {period N|timeout N|saving N|off}
                interface nickname NNN
                interface nwid {NN|on|off}
                interface ap {N|off|auto}
                interface txpower {NmW|NdBm|off|auto}
                interface sens N
                interface retry {limit N|lifetime N}
                interface rts {N|auto|fixed|off}
                interface frag {N|auto|fixed|off}
                interface modulation {11g|11a|CCK|OFDMg|...}
                interface commit 
       Check man pages for more details.

Open a terminal:

 $ sudo iwconfig wlan0 channel 12

Last edited by oupsemma (2011-02-17 15:46:20)

zoxir

Member

Registered: 2011-02-17

Posts: 17

Re: rt2860sta channel issue

I intalled crda but what do I do with it???

sudo iwconfig wlan0 channel 12

returned me an error message when I tried it I will post it when I'm home.

Thank you guys for your help. Any other ideas???

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: rt2860sta channel issue

I intalled crda but what do I do with it???

Read the documentation, set the appropriate config file. Then rmmod all wireless modules and modprobe them again. crda gets called when they load.

zoxir

Member

Registered: 2011-02-17

Posts: 17

Re: rt2860sta channel issue

Ok thanks for the quick reply I'll do what you said and let you know how it went.

zoxir

Member

Registered: 2011-02-17

Posts: 17

Re: rt2860sta channel issue

Ok an update on my condition
First of all the output of

sudo iwconfig wlan0 channel 12

is

Error for wireless request "Set Frequency" (8B04) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

I checked crda documantation and it said that it can use wpa_supplicant or iw to change the reg domain. Both failed iw complains about not finding nl80211 and editing the country entry in

 /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

didn't work I tried both GR and EU. I also tried intalling wireless-regdom, I edited

/etc/conf.d/wireless-regdom

and I uncommented my country code then added wireless-regdom to the deamons array in rc.conf. When initialising the deamon there's an error message again nl80211 not found.

Is there some step I missed or done wrong???

oupsemma

Member

Registered: 2010-01-01

Posts: 70

Re: rt2860sta channel issue

The command $ sudo iwconfig wlan0 channel 12
- is working on my eeepc 1000H which is using rt2860sta, when the wi-fi has been brought up
- gives the same answer you got, when the wi-fi is not brought up.

Try to bring your wi-fi interface up.

zoxir

Member

Registered: 2011-02-17

Posts: 17

Re: rt2860sta channel issue

My wireless is up and running I am connected to my home wireless network right now. The problem is that I can not see or connect to wireless networks on channels 12 and 13. I had an eeepc too but broke it's monitor btw. It probably works better on your netbook because you have the RT2860 while II have RT3090. Thanks for the reply though any other ideas are welcome.

oupsemma

Member

Registered: 2010-01-01

Posts: 70

Re: rt2860sta channel issue

May be modprobe mac80211 before modprobe 3090?
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showpo … stcount=21

It seems it would be better when reaching 2.6.38 kernel:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-64 … ml#6498535

Last edited by oupsemma (2011-02-18 13:47:29)

zoxir

Member

Registered: 2011-02-17

Posts: 17

Re: rt2860sta channel issue

Ok after modprobing mac80211 iw reg set seems to work and is not returning any errors but I still have 11 channels only. Maybe we're getting close to a solution.

zoxir

Member

Registered: 2011-02-17

Posts: 17

Re: rt2860sta channel issue

New update I can see the wireless network I want. wicd says it's on channel 11 but the admin told me that hadn't changed and will not change anything. Wicd can not connect actualy it does connect but with poor quality so I use iwconfing and dhcpd and everything looks fine. Should I change network manager??