Arch Linux

josiano

Member

Registered: 2011-05-19

Posts: 16

wifi issue with 2.6.38 and iwl3945

hi.
after a kernel panic yesterday, I had to reinstall my whole system on my thinkpad x60.
now I have 2.6.38 and my wifi is gone.

I use wicd for facility, but after login, wicd is "unable to get IP Address".

even manually I cannot get the wifi via ifconfig/iwconfig. the wifi light is on, but I cannot connect:

# ifconfig wlan0 up
# iwconfig wlan0 essid "foo" key "bar"
# dhcpcd wlan0 -> ... ... timed out

$ lspci | grep Network
Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connectoin (rev 02)

$ ifconfig -a
wlan0    Link encap:Ethernet   HWaddr 00:1B:77:6F:88:A9
         BROADCAST MULTICAST   MTU:1500  Metric:1
         RX packets:0  errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
         TX packets:30 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
         collisions:0 txenqueuelen:1000
         RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)    TX bytes:11502 (11.2 kb)

in /etc/rc.conf:

MODULES=(... iwlcore iwl3945 ...)
INTERFACES=(!eth0 !wlan0)
DAEMONS=(... !network wicd ...)

it was working perfectly before this new install so it might be related to 2.6.38...

I read that some users needed to install iwlwifi-3945 but I read that this is not needed anymore with a kernel > 2.6.24.

oh, and I was using nm-applet before but it looks broken with latest console-kit (although I'm not sure that's the reason).

thanks for your help.
_j

Last edited by josiano (2011-05-19 12:21:39)

Ramses de Norre

Member

From: Leuven - Belgium

Registered: 2007-03-27

Posts: 1,289

Re: wifi issue with 2.6.38 and iwl3945

Did you install the linux-firmware package after the reinstall? You need to have the proprietary iwl firmware from that package.

EDIT: typo...

Last edited by Ramses de Norre (2011-05-19 13:31:54)

josiano

Member

Registered: 2011-05-19

Posts: 16

Re: wifi issue with 2.6.38 and iwl3945

yes I did.

# pacman -Ss linux-firmware
core/linux-firmware 20110512-2 [installed]

and now I realize that I can *sometimes* start my wifi manually (ifconfig/iwconfig), but it seems to be randomly and the interface goes down after 5min or so....

that's insane.

Ramses de Norre

Member

From: Leuven - Belgium

Registered: 2007-03-27

Posts: 1,289

Re: wifi issue with 2.6.38 and iwl3945

Anything in dmesg when that happens?

josiano

Member

Registered: 2011-05-19

Posts: 16

Re: wifi issue with 2.6.38 and iwl3945

I have this:

iwl3945 0000:03:00.0: Error setting Tx power (-5)
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
e1000e 0000:02:00.0: irq 44 for MSI/MSI-X

but I don't know what it means..

got_tree-fitty

Member

Registered: 2011-05-10

Posts: 13

Re: wifi issue with 2.6.38 and iwl3945

I have the same wireless card and driver, and my wifi is working. For my Arch setup though I use Network Manager instead of wicd, so you may want to try that. For a while i was experiencing the same issue as you, although I now believe it was because the network was ad hoc. If you do decide to use network manager make sure you disable the 'network' daemon replacing it with 'networkmanager'; you cannot have both running. I have not used wicd since switching to infrastructure so I am not sure if this will help at all.

Good Luck

xdunlapx

Member

From: Ohio, USA

Registered: 2011-05-12

Posts: 19

Re: wifi issue with 2.6.38 and iwl3945

I have the same card and don't have any issues. I have the 2.6.38 kernel. Sounds like a configuration file somewhere is messed up. I just basically copied the rc.conf from the wiki and added my wifi info such as

iwconfig wlan0 essid "myessid"
iwconfig wlan0 key "mykey"
wlan0="dhcp"

I don't know what else to suggest. I hope you get it working soon.

josiano

Member

Registered: 2011-05-19

Posts: 16

Re: wifi issue with 2.6.38 and iwl3945

unfortunately, as stated before, using NetworkManager is also not working.
the applet icon appears in my systray when I login, but when I click on my network, I get:

** (nm-applet:2447): WARNING **: Error in getting active connection 'Vpn'
property: (19) Method "Get" with signature "ss" on interface
"org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" doesn't exist

** (nm-applet:2447): WARNING **: _nm_object_array_demarshal: couldn't create
object for /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1

I found this related post:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=934164
except I don't use gnome.

I have this in ~/.xinitrc:

exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch startfluxbox

and in ~/.fluxbox/startup:

fbpid=$!
sleep 1
{
   /usr/bin/nm-applet --sm-disable &
} &
wait $fbpid

this is driving me nuts.

@xdunlapx
do you really have those `iwconfig ...' lines in your rc.conf ???

cheers,
_j

xdunlapx

Member

From: Ohio, USA

Registered: 2011-05-12

Posts: 19

Re: wifi issue with 2.6.38 and iwl3945

...

@xdunlapx
do you really have those `iwconfig ...' lines in your rc.conf ???

cheers,
_j

Yes I do. I had no idea at first if it would work but it does, for me. When Arch boots up it connects to wifi automatically with those lines in rc.conf. I removed the eth0 lines as I don't ever use wired ethernet. And since I rarely take my laptop somewhere and need wifi elsewhere I don't need to use a network manager of some kind.

If I do need to connect to another access point, I can do it manually.

I wish I could help you. I'm not that great (yet) at troubleshooting wifi.

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,201

Re: wifi issue with 2.6.38 and iwl3945

after a kernel panic yesterday, I had to reinstall my whole system on my thinkpad x60.

I don't think that would have been my approach.  Oh well, to each his own.

# ifconfig wlan0 up
# iwconfig wlan0 essid "foo" key "bar"
# dhcpcd wlan0 -> ... ... timed out

I would take a look at the output of iwconfig  (No other parameters) right after step 2.  Make sure you are associated with "foo" before going any further.

These steps make it look like you are using a WEP encrypted router.
 
If, by chance,  it is WPA, then your approach is wrong.  In this case, you don't put the key in iwconfig; things are encrypted at a higher level.  First, you would associate with no key.  Then you would set up wpa_supplicant to provide cryptographic services, only then would you use higher level protocols like dhcpcd.

Anyway,  make certain you are associated with the router before trying anything after iwconfig.

edit:typo

Last edited by ewaller (2011-05-20 16:37:13)

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josiano

Member

Registered: 2011-05-19

Posts: 16

Re: wifi issue with 2.6.38 and iwl3945

after a kernel panic yesterday, I had to reinstall my whole system on my thinkpad x60.

I don't think that would have been my approach.  Oh well, to each his own.

me neither if I had more experience with kernel/boot failures.
this was suggested to me twice on archlinux irc.

I would take a look at the output of iwconfig  (No other parameters) right after step 2.  Make sure you are associated with "foo" before going any further.

here we go:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11abg  ESSID:"foo"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:0F:3D:61:CE:36
          Bit Rate=48 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:0FBF-CAB4-08
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=48/70  Signal level=-62 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

These steps make it look like you are using a WEP encrypted router.

indeed

now I realize that `dhcpcd wlan0' does not always fail. if it works (once in a while), the connection is lost after 10min or so, then I cannot get it back for some reasons.I usually do:
`killall dhcpcd', `ifconfig wlan0 down' and start again. maybe I'm wrong but I have to reboot for it to work (once) again.

maybe this is the culprit?

$ dmesg | tail
[  411.094375] iwl3945 0000:03:00.0: Error setting Tx power (-5).
[  411.100189] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

also, I would love to have a networkmanager because I use wifi a lot in workshops etc...

thanks for your help.

cheers,
_j