Belkin F5D6001 Freezing Ubuntu 7.10 RC1

[gio91ber]

Installing and using Ubuntu 7.10 (the Beta and the Release Candidate 1) and connecting to internet with the Belkin Wireless Network Card F5D6001 results in a computer's freezing (also the mouse doesn't move the cursor on the screen). It doesn't freeze immediately but after a variable period of time? What's going on with that computer? Please solve it... it could be a problem for the entire distribution. My brother (the card's owner) says that on Ubuntu Edgy (6.10) it worked out-of-the-box... Why on Gutsy Gibbon wouldn't work anymore?.

Sorry for my HORRIBLE English... I'm Italian and I can't write very well... Thanks in advance. Bye
Giovanni Bertelli

[gio91ber (gio91ber)]

Yes... It does the same error every time... also after installing new ACPI modules.
... One more thing: when I say that the computer freezes it means that also with CTRL+ALT+F1 and CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE I can't reinitialize GDM and X11

[C. Reis (reic)]

Hi there, I can confirm this Bug. Complete system freeze (LEDs on keyboard for capslock and roll keep blinking, all attempts to work with the system are ignored, only hardware reset works) on configuring the wireless connection, although the card itself seems to be working out of the box and recognised well, because it lists wireless networks in the roaming mode and the network-admin configuration window for the card. I've tried this with Live CD of the release candidate and the installed system, also tried to work around the problem with ndiswrapper, which leads to the same freeze after completing the configuration.

Please don't ignore this error, there seem to be problems with the configuration of other cards, too

[C. Reis (reic)]

Whoops, totally forgot: The card worked out of the box in Dapper, and worked with ndiswrapper in Breezy, Edgy and Feisty... there seems to be some kind of regression ;)

[C. Reis (reic)]

Allright, here's a little workaround I got my system running with:

The module r8180, which is supposed to support the Belkin F5D6001 out of the box, seems to crash the system on configuring the wlan - card.
Here's what to do:
1. Blacklist r8180 by adding "blacklist r8180" in your /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, reboot the system
2. use ndiswrapper as documented on the ndiswrapper page, load the net8180 windows driver; it's important to use "ndiswrapper -d 1799:6001 net8180" to specify the device you want to use with the driver. Follow the further ndiswrapper - installation instructions.
3. configure your network as usual

Though this way seems to work, it's propably not a pro for ubuntu, if a new user sees his wlan card supported and ends up crashing badly.

[Aathos (aaron-chmiel)]

I have been having the same problem as well, and it seem to be pretty well documented in the Ubuntu Forums. Reic, where did you get the windows driver you are using? I can't seem to find one that works for me. There are a lot links for the 8185 and 8187 drivers, but that doesn't recognize my hardware.

[C. Reis (reic)]

just google for ndis5x-8180(173).zip , you should get loads of results :)

[Stefan Kull (stefan-kull)]

Regarding: Complete system freeze (LEDs on keyboard for capslock and roll keep blinking, all attempts to work with the system are ignored, only hardware reset works).

I could confirm that i running into the same problem with 8.04Beta with 2.6.24-14-generic. For more information please take a look at "[Bug 205653] Hardy beta - laptop randomly freezes with caps lock & scroll lock leds blinking" https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/205653 .This happens with all kind of Wireless cards...

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

Is this still an issue?

[C. Reis (reic)]

With the above mentioned solution (via blacklisting module r8180 and the use of ndiswrapper) the crash could be avoided. In the latest release candidate of Intrepid Ibex the card is recognised properly, but seems to suffer from bad performance regarding the signal strength of the wireless lan (80% signal strength in Hardy Heron with the ndiswrapper - workaround, 5 - 10 % with the native Ibex module). Please feel free to tell me if I can support you with further information.

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

So the original problem was fixed. In this case a new bug should be filed and this one should be closed. What do you think?

[C. Reis (reic)]

roger! :]