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#1 2011-04-14 14:27:25

silverhammermba
Wiki Maintainer
Registered: 2011-04-14
Posts: 156

[SOLVED] Setting Up Wireless Card (RTL8191SEvB)

First of all, I forgot to install wireless_tools and wpa_supplicant during installation and I no longer have ethernet access. I downloaded the packages on another computer, transferred them over by USB stick, and installed them. They appear to work fine, but I'm not sure if that might cause problems later.

#lspci says I have the Realtek RTL8191SEvB chipset. The Arch wiki mentioned that the firmware might be missing so I downloaded it from here and copied rtl8192sfw.bin into /lib/firmware/RTL8192SU/.

But iwconfig still reports no wireless interface. Is there another package I need to install or something else I need to configure to get this working? I have a feeling that I don't actually have a driver installed for it, but I haven't been able to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Last edited by silverhammermba (2011-04-15 03:58:06)

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#2 2011-04-14 15:20:54

HeSaid
Member
From: southwest Florida USA
Registered: 2010-07-02
Posts: 53

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Up Wireless Card (RTL8191SEvB)

Greetings and welcome to the forum.
1. check for loaded kernel module:

lsmod | grep 80211

Here is an example:
[neal@humidor ~]$ lsmod | grep 80211
mac80211              202222  2 iwlagn,iwlcore
cfg80211              141484  3 iwlagn,iwlcore,mac80211
rfkill                 14810  2 cfg80211,thinkpad_acpi


2. check for firmware being loaded:

dmesg | grep firmware

In this example, you can see that the kernel module has called for firmware and found it.
[neal@humidor ~]$ dmesg | grep firmware
thinkpad_acpi: asked for hotkey mask 0x04018070, but firmware forced it to 0x00018070
iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 128.50.3.1 build 13488
IBM TrackPoint firmware: 0x0e, buttons: 3/3

Let us know your results.

I use wicd on all of my computers, so I highly recommend it for managing my network connections.  Don't forget to install either wicd-gtk or wicd-kde along with wicd in order to get the tray icon on your desktop.
--
Neal


Registered Linux User 159445.

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#3 2011-04-14 16:02:39

silverhammermba
Wiki Maintainer
Registered: 2011-04-14
Posts: 156

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Up Wireless Card (RTL8191SEvB)

No relevant output appears for either command. I'm pretty sure that the driver isn't installed. I've followed the directions on the wiki but with no luck.

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#4 2011-04-15 03:05:16

HeSaid
Member
From: southwest Florida USA
Registered: 2010-07-02
Posts: 53

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Up Wireless Card (RTL8191SEvB)

You are correct that the kernel module (driver) is not loaded, else you would see output from grepping the modules for 80211 as stated earlier in my first line.

I would suggest checking the manufacturer/device code and googling for the appropriate kernel module.

lspci -nn

Look for a line like this:
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1000 [8086:0084]
The pair of 4-digit numbers at the end of the line are the manufacturer and the device codes. Use them to google for "linux kernel module 1234:5678".  Once you know the module, if it is in the included kernel's modules, you can modprobe it.

The fact that you have an 8191 series chip and downloaded 8192 firmware shows some confusion. Time to start over with wireless configuration.
--
Neal


Registered Linux User 159445.

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#5 2011-04-15 03:57:04

silverhammermba
Wiki Maintainer
Registered: 2011-04-14
Posts: 156

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Up Wireless Card (RTL8191SEvB)

Actually the 8192 firmware covers the 8191 cards as well. Confusing!

Had to install the firmware and the driver from AUR. Then everything worked perfectly! Currently connected to my wireless network with wicd.

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#6 2011-04-20 16:24:52

Gyscos
Member
Registered: 2009-09-19
Posts: 33

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Up Wireless Card (RTL8191SEvB)

I've got the same card, installed the firmware and driver, but it doesn't work really well...
I can list available networks fine, but I can't connect to any of them : the dhcpcd times out - same for dhclient.
Also, maybe unrelated, but the signal qualitu never changes from 10/10. Also, the noise level is always at -100dB. No matter what network I try to connect to - even when I'm not connected to any one...
I tried wicd and networkmanager (not at the same time tongue) and they both failed (as expected, since the manual configuration doesn't work either).

Does this sound familiar ? What could I do ?

Thanks !!

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#7 2011-05-16 14:00:51

yellowjk
Member
From: Rhode Island
Registered: 2011-05-16
Posts: 18
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Up Wireless Card (RTL8191SEvB)

Hello, I seem to be having similar issues with my Realtek rtl8191SE wireless card. The problem i am having it the it will not display the signal strength of networks in the network manager, nor can i connect to encrypted networks. I can however connect to open networks. I have tried using the manufacturers driver (which i have used for other distro's with out a problem) and the driver/firmware mentioned above with the same results. I hope we can figure this out, as i don't want to go back to ubuntu lol

output from lspci -nn
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller [10ec:8172] (rev 10)

output from iwconfig

wlan0     802.11bg  Nickname:"rtl8191SEVA2"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   
          Retry:on   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=10/100  Signal level=0 dBm  Noise level=-100 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Last edited by yellowjk (2011-05-16 14:01:12)


Thinkpad T510 running x64 Arch
ThinkServer TS200V running x64 Arch

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#8 2011-05-16 16:49:49

Absolosba
Member
Registered: 2011-05-09
Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Up Wireless Card (RTL8191SEvB)

I'm having similar but different problems with this card. NetworkManager connects fine to most networks, but doesn't display some that I need (There are multiple networks with the same SSID which may be the problem or it could be that they have WPA2 Enterprise). Wicd works with a bunch of networks but cannot get an IP address with some open or WEP networks. I've tried using dhclient with no luck.

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#9 2011-05-19 16:12:01

yellowjk
Member
From: Rhode Island
Registered: 2011-05-16
Posts: 18
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Up Wireless Card (RTL8191SEvB)

Bump

I also want to mention that that this all started when i bought a SSD to replace my HHD. I installed arch on my HHD one week before i bought the SSD and the manufacturer's drivers work, i can connect to open and encrypted networks.  When i installed arch on my SSD, i used the same driver as i did before but i started experiencing the problem i mentioned above in post #7.

on my HHD:
$ lsmod | grep 80211
cfg80211              141484  1 r8192se_pci
rfkill                 14810  5 bluetooth,thinkpad_acpi,cfg80211

on my SSD:
$ lsmod | grep 80211

(i get nothing)


Thinkpad T510 running x64 Arch
ThinkServer TS200V running x64 Arch

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