[Solved] Intel 5100 wireless issues - connected, problem data transfer

senior_spielbergo · 2011-02-24 16:06:54

Hi,

I'm still an Arch Newbie and I'm using Arch 32bit on my Thinkpad T400 with an Intel 5100 wireless chip, Gnome, laptop-mode-tools and the NetworkManager.

[david@david-ThinkPad-T400 ~]$ lspci | grep -i net
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection

I installed everything accordingly to the wiki (Wireless Setup and NetworkManager), which means that I installed wireless_tools, linux-firmware, networkmanager, network-manager-applet and gnome-keyring. Because the corresponding module iwlagn is included in the kernel, there is nothing else to install.

[david@david-ThinkPad-T400 ~]$ sudo pacman -Q linux-firmware wireless_tools networkmanager network-manager-applet gnome-keyring 
linux-firmware 20110201-1
wireless_tools 29-4
networkmanager 0.8.3-0.20110113
network-manager-applet 0.8.2-2
gnome-keyring 2.32.1-1

I can connect to any wireless network, but after a while the transfered datarate drops to zero. Sometimes after a little while there is data coming in again, but not for long.

I tried a lot of things, like enabling the hal-daemon, but nothing worked and I have to use my ethernet interface, which works without any problems.

One thing I find strange is, that number of "Tx excessive retries" and "Invalid misc" in the iwconfig is often very high (in the output below it is very low, because I plugged in the ethernet cable after startup).

[david@david-ThinkPad-T400 ~]$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:"Butze-BS"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.442 GHz  Access Point: 00:24:01:69:AC:E3   
          Bit Rate=1 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=58/70  Signal level=-52 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:22  Invalid misc:17   Missed beacon:0

Maybe one of you has got an idea what to do. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks for any hints!

David

I also post my rc.conf and the output from ifconfig, maybe it helps to track down the problem.

rc.conf

#
# /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux
#

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# LOCALIZATION
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# LOCALE: available languages can be listed with the 'locale -a' command
# HARDWARECLOCK: set to "UTC" or "localtime", any other value will result
#   in the hardware clock being left untouched (useful for virtualization)
# TIMEZONE: timezones are found in /usr/share/zoneinfo
# KEYMAP: keymaps are found in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps
# CONSOLEFONT: found in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts (only needed for non-US)
# CONSOLEMAP: found in /usr/share/kbd/consoletrans
# USECOLOR: use ANSI color sequences in startup messages
#
LOCALE="en_US.UTF-8"
HARDWARECLOCK="UTC"
TIMEZONE="Europe/Berlin"
KEYMAP="de"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
USECOLOR="yes"

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# HARDWARE
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# MOD_AUTOLOAD: Allow autoloading of modules at boot and when needed
# MOD_BLACKLIST: Prevent udev from loading these modules
# MODULES: Modules to load at boot-up. Prefix with a ! to blacklist.
#
# NOTE: Use of 'MOD_BLACKLIST' is deprecated. Please use ! in the MODULES array.
#
MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes"
#MOD_BLACKLIST=() #deprecated
MODULES=(fuse acpi-cpufreq cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_powersave thinkpad_acpi vboxdrv)

# Scan for LVM volume groups at startup, required if you use LVM
USELVM="no"

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# NETWORKING
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# HOSTNAME: Hostname of machine. Should also be put in /etc/hosts
#
HOSTNAME="david-ThinkPad-T400"

# Use 'ifconfig -a' or 'ls /sys/class/net/' to see all available interfaces.
#
# Interfaces to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each interface then list in INTERFACES
#   - prefix an entry in INTERFACES with a ! to disable it
#   - no hyphens in your interface names - Bash doesn't like it
# 
# DHCP:     Set your interface to "dhcp" (eth0="dhcp")
# Wireless: See network profiles below
#

#Static IP example
#eth0="eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255"
#eth0="dhcp"
#wlan0="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(!eth0 !wlan0)

# Routes to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each route then list in ROUTES
#   - prefix an entry in ROUTES with a ! to disable it
#
gateway="default gw 192.168.0.1"
ROUTES=(!gateway)
 
# Setting this to "yes" will skip network shutdown.
# This is required if your root device is on NFS.
NETWORK_PERSIST="no"

# Enable these network profiles at boot-up.  These are only useful
# if you happen to need multiple network configurations (ie, laptop users)
#   - set to 'menu' to present a menu during boot-up (dialog package required)
#   - prefix an entry with a ! to disable it
#
# Network profiles are found in /etc/network.d
#
# This now requires the netcfg package
#
#NETWORKS=(main)

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# DAEMONS
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
#   - prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it
#   - prefix a daemon with a @ to start it up in the background
#
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng dbus networkmanager netfs crond gdm cups laptop-mode cpufreq)

ifconfig

[david@david-ThinkPad-T400 ~]$ ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:24:7E:16:26:17  
          inet addr:192.168.0.195  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::224:7eff:fe16:2617/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:8744 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:7720 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:7204171 (6.8 Mb)  TX bytes:1019204 (995.3 Kb)
          Interrupt:20 Memory:fc000000-fc020000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:22:FA:BC:4E:10  
          inet addr:192.168.0.197  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::222:faff:febc:4e10/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:933 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:80 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:134921 (131.7 Kb)  TX bytes:5754 (5.6 Kb)

Last edited by senior_spielbergo (2011-04-02 09:36:19)

stephane · 2011-02-24 16:14:25

A collegue told me he have a similar issue with his intel 5100 card. The workaround for him was to use kernel 2.6.31.

See his bug report : https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27982

senior_spielbergo · 2011-02-24 16:22:15

Hi,

thanks for this quick answer. It is good to know that there are other people with this problem.

Maybe I should add, that I already used Ubuntu 10.10 on this laptop and here the Intel 5100 wireless chip worked without any problems.
Ubuntu 10.10 uses kernel 2.6.35-25 at the moment.

So I don't know if this problem can be fixed by downgrading the kernel. Correct me, if I'm wrong.

David

Last edited by senior_spielbergo (2011-02-24 16:39:35)

ManuP · 2011-04-01 04:55:46

I got the same issue. I fixed it by deleting vboxdrv from the modules array.
Dirty workaround, but that fixed it for me. At least until I want to start virtualbox...

senior_spielbergo · 2011-04-02 09:40:33

For me it worked to manually install the newest version of the firmware from http://intellinuxwireless.org/?n=downloads.
But befor the next linux-firmware update I had to delete that file and it was added again via the update.

=> SOLVED

Arch Linux

#1 2011-02-24 16:06:54

[Solved] Intel 5100 wireless issues - connected, problem data transfer

#2 2011-02-24 16:14:25

Re: [Solved] Intel 5100 wireless issues - connected, problem data transfer

#3 2011-02-24 16:22:15

Re: [Solved] Intel 5100 wireless issues - connected, problem data transfer

#4 2011-04-01 04:55:46

Re: [Solved] Intel 5100 wireless issues - connected, problem data transfer

#5 2011-04-02 09:40:33

Re: [Solved] Intel 5100 wireless issues - connected, problem data transfer

Board footer