3945ABG wifi card make my computer very hot and freeze the system

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli]

Against ubuntu 8.10 intrepid up-to-date:
When I activate my wifi card, I saw my computer turning very hot (Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop) after a few minutes. Then, the system becomes very slow and finally freeze.
If I shutdown the computer and wait a few minutes, I can again using my computer a little time before having again the same effect. If I try to reboot without letting it get colder, the system is still very slow.

Turning off the wifi card and using a network cable, no issue occurs and I can run intrepid without burning my legs or my table :)

Apparently, I am not the only person to encounter such a problem: http://technophiliac.wordpress.com/2008/11/01/first-look-at-intrepid-ibex/

Card : 39451BG
Driver: iwl3945
$ lshw
[...]
        *-pci:2
             description: PCI bridge
             product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 1c.1
             bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.1
             version: 01
             width: 32 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm bus_master cap_list
             configuration: driver=pcieport-driver
           *-network DISABLED
                description: Wireless interface
                product: PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection
                vendor: Intel Corporation
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:0c:00.0
                logical name: wmaster0
                version: 02
                serial: 00:1b:77:02:20:07
                width: 32 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: pm msi pciexpress cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
                configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwl3945 latency=0 module=iwl3945 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abg

[Tim Gardner (timg-tpi)]

Please try installing linux-backports-modules-intrepid, which is an Ubuntu packaged version of wireless-testing.

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-intrepid

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli (didrocks)]

Tim, I installed it one hour ago and I still have no freeze and the temperature seems reasonable (computer "cold", it took previously 10~15 minutes to get it hot enough so that computer freeze).

Hope that this wireless-testing (I saw from the description of the dependencie package) will make it soon as a SRU. I am not quite confortable that Ubuntu may burn laptops on a very popular Intel Wi-Fi card…

If you need more advanced tests, do no hesitate to ask.

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli (didrocks)]

It seems to be a false hope : I still have the issue, it appears later, but it appears.

The temperature makes me afraid to broke down my computer. I switch back to my wired one during this time, but my network card is used in very solded laptop.

[Alexander Butenko (avb)]

:( Unfortunately im experiencing same issue with my lenovo thinkpad X61. Wireless card is terribly hot while the rest of the laptop is around 40C.

[kernel-janitor (kernel-janitor)]

Hi Didier,

Please be sure to confirm this issue exists with the latest development release of Ubuntu. ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic . If the issue remains, please run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 292584

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Whitehat (i-whitehat)]

Have the same issue with Intel 5100 WLAN and ubuntu karmic! Wifi card under linux becomes so hot, that I can't work with my touchpad :(

[Whitehat (i-whitehat)]

made some benchmarks:
with TP-LINK WR941N router, situated behind 2 walls and 20 meters away from notebook, I have:
#iwconfig wlan0 txpower auto

# iwconfig wlan0 |egrep Link\|Tx-Power
          Bit Rate=0 kb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm
          Link Quality=62/70 Signal level=-48 dBm Noise level=-84 dBm

Ubuntu sets Tx power to maximus, heating the network card.
speedtest.net benchmark shows about 80Mbit/s

Let's make Tx Power lower, until we see performance degradation.. I lowered Tx down to 5 without any performance degradation. And the card became cooler :)

It will even work at Tx Power set to 1
#iwconfig wlan0 txpower 1
# iwconfig wlan0 |egrep Link\|Tx-Power
          Bit Rate=0 kb/s Tx-Power=1 dBm
          Link Quality=57/70 Signal level=-53 dBm Noise level=-83 dBm
But benchmark shows only 20Mbit/s

So, can I make Ubuntu to automatically control Tx power of Intel Wlan cards?

[Steffanie (smpeterson)]

Architecture: i386
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: steffanie 2284 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xd4340000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Conexant CX20551 (Waikiki)'
   Components : 'HDA:14f15047,103c30b2,00100000'
   Controls : 17
   Simple ctrls : 9
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=8d7f8ba6-5404-478b-82ef-09e5c5aa303e
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion dv2000 (RM668AV)
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
Package: linux (not installed)
ProcCmdLine: root=UUID=9c2602cf-e2ca-4485-b9b2-6d55a0674d6f ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.31-14-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.26
RfKill:

Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686
UserGroups: adm admin audio cdrom dialout dip fax floppy fuse lpadmin netdev plugdev powerdev pulse pulse-access scanner tape video
WpaSupplicantLog:

dmi.bios.date: 04/13/2007
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: F.26
dmi.board.name: 30B2
dmi.board.vendor: Wistron
dmi.board.version: 61.58
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Wistron
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvrF.26:bd04/13/2007:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPPaviliondv2000(RM668AV):pvrF.26:rvnWistron:rn30B2:rvr61.58:cvnWistron:ct10:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: HP Pavilion dv2000 (RM668AV)
dmi.product.version: F.26
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. From a terminal window please run:

apport-collect 292584

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Daniel Kulesz (kuleszdl)]

I have the same problem in Ubuntu 12.04 with a Thinkpad X60 and the same wifi card - it does not look like this has been fixed yet, and 4 years have passed...!