Wireless network not working with Acer Aspire 4315

[Martin Gustafsson]

Made a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.04 on a Acer Aspire 4315 and everything works apart from the internal wireless card.
It does not show up in the network manager although it seems to be detected by the kernel as AR242XX. I am running kernel 2.6.24-12-generic. Also tried 2.6.24-13 but it did not work better (in fact worse, as it also failed to detect the sound card).
As a work-around, I plugged in my D-link dwl-122 usb-card, which works.
I attach output from lspci -vv and lsmod.
Let me know if there is anything else I can do/provide!

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Martin,

Care to test the latest 2.6.24-14 kernel and if the issue still exists also provide your dmesg output as an attachment. Just curious if you are able to configure and use the card without network manager. It may be that this is an issue with network manager rather than the kernel itself. In this case the following may help: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingNetworkManager .

Also, If you still have issues with the sound card, care to open a new separate report for that? Thanks.

[Martin Gustafsson (martin-gustafsson)]

Now running 2.6.24-14 and the wireless connection still does not show up in the network manager. Attached is the dmesg.
I am not sure how to configure the card without the network manager.
"ifconfig" only shows eth0 and lo and iwconfig says they don't have any wireless extensions.

[Martin Gustafsson (martin-gustafsson)]

I got it working with the instruction from the following link:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=662877

[Martin Gustafsson (martin-gustafsson)]

I have tested 2.6.24-13, -14, -15, -16. I can not get the wireless network working with any of them without additional compilation and installation of http://snapshots.madwifi.org/special/madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007.tar.gz.

[Martin Gustafsson (martin-gustafsson)]

I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.10 and installed 2.6.27-rc3 from http://kernel.ubuntu.com/pub/next/2.6.27-rc3/
Then I put:
ath5k in /etc/modules
Now the wireless is working.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

[Martin Gustafsson (martin-gustafsson)]

Hello, I have upgraded to the latest kernel 2.6.27-1.2 and now it seems like the wireless network is working perfect. The network manager is showing a strong and consistent signal. I have also tested the speed to and from the internet and it is good (comparable with with eth0). Good work! I really hope 2.6.27 will make it into 8.10.
I consider this bug resolved and If I find something other that does not work in 2.6.27 I will open a new bug report.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Martin,

Thanks so much for the testing and the update. Glad to hear things are working! I'll go ahead and mark this "Fix Released". However, if you notice any regressions regrading this bug before Intrepid's final release. please feel free to reopen by setting the status back to "New". Also, just for future reference you can manage the status of your own bugs by clicking on the current status in the yellow line and then choosing a new status in the revealed drop down box. You can learn more about bug statuses at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status . Thanks again and please continue to report any future bugs that you may find.

[Martin Gustafsson (martin-gustafsson)]

After upgrade to 2.6.27-7 October 24, the wireless network is not working at all. No wireless network card is found by the network manager. If I try to load ath5k with "sudo modprobe ath5k" I get: FATAL: Module ath5k not found.

[Martin Gustafsson (martin-gustafsson)]

After some investigation, I found out that ath5k has been removed from the kernel and put in the backport-modules instead. So I downloaded that package and things are back to normal again.

[David Jonsson (david-djk)]

Thanks for this thread. It also helped me with my Acer Aspire One which until now had the same problem.

David

[Simon Bridge (simonbridge)]

Recent fresh install of intrepid, followed above
still no go on wireless

Wireless
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

lshw -C network
  *-network UNCLAIMED
       description: Ethernet controller
       product: AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter
       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: cap_list
       configuration: latency=0

uname -r
2.6.27-7-generic

from this report:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-intrepid
edit /etc/modules and add ath5k

lsmod | grep ath
ath5k 108420 0
lbm_cw_mac80211 211248 1 ath5k
lbm_cw_cfg80211 42260 2 ath5k,lbm_cw_mac80211
led_class 12164 2 acer_wmi,ath5k
ath_pci 99096 0
wlan 211952 1 ath_pci
ath_hal 198864 1 ath_pci

also bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/269253

suggests blacklisting ath_pci

sudo modprobe -r ath_pci
sudo modprobe ath5k

still - same result from iwconfig and lshw

Possibly I'm missing a step?

[Simon Bridge (simonbridge)]

Hah! spoke too soon -
What I forgot was to remove the existing drivers. Blacklisting ath_pci probably won't hurt either.
Thanks people.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

For more information why ath5k is not enabled by default refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IntrepidReleaseNotes - "Atheros ath5k wireless driver not enabled by default" . Thanks.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.