Acer laptop & ipw2200: Recent upgrade breaks radio kill-switch
| Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| linux (Ubuntu) |
Expired
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
| wireless-tools (Ubuntu) |
Invalid
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
Bug Description
I installed gutsy (tribe 5) on my Acer Extensa 3001WLMi-laptop (with an ipw2000 wlan-card) and didn't have any problems at all for the first few days. (even my battery was finally correctly recognised.)
So far, wireless LAN has always been working flawlessly for me.. I was able to connect to every network I wanted to and could use the front "wireless-lan button" to enable or disable the wireless-lan card. (This is the the radio-kill switch for this laptop model)
But a recent upgrade of a few packages seems to have broken all of this. (Sorry I can't be more specific here, but I did a dist-upgrade and it upgraded a whole bunch of different packages and I can't be entirely sure which one is responsible for this problem).
I rebooted my laptop and was not able to connect to any wireless network.
my syslog showed the entry:
jk-laptop kernel: [24040.152000] ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
jk-laptop kernel: [24040.152000] Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.
Usually I was always able to "reactivate" wireless-lan by pressing the radio-kill-button on the front of my laptop - but this is only causing the following key-event in syslog - without activating my wireless-card:
jk-laptop kernel: [24924.432000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e056 <keycode>' to make it known.
jk-laptop kernel: [24924.440000] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xd6 on isa0060/serio0).
If I boot in Windows, press this radio-kill button (so that its LED is flashing which symbolises that my WLAN is activated), reboot the PC without turning its power off and booting straight into gutsy, I am able to use my WLAN-connection just fine without any problems. There is no option in my BIOS to enable the WLAN-card by default at boot-up.
I have tried a few different things (for example the acerhk-module with different options) - but nothing seems to fix this problem.
It was working in gutsy just fine - until I made this one upgrade..
It seems to be Kernel-unrelated, as it also appears when I'm booting into 2.6.22-10 or 2.6.22-11. (I am sure that it was working in both kernels before.. - Currently I am using '2.6.22-
ifconfig and iwconfig both list the wireless-lan card correctly:
root@jk-laptop:~# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
eth1 radio off ESSID:""
Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power=off Sensitivity=8/0
Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:on
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
root@jk-laptop:~# ifconfig eth1
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0E:35:50:0A:A8
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
However, I cannot use iwconfig to activate the wlan-card:
root@jk-laptop:~# iwconfig eth1 power on
Error for wireless request "Set Power Management" (8B2C) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Input/output error.
root@jk-laptop:~# iwconfig eth1 txpower on
Error for wireless request "Set Tx Power" (8B26) :
SET failed on device eth1 ; Input/output error.
(This appears in the syslog:)
Sep 27 02:14:16 jk-laptop kernel: [26138.552000] ipw2200: Failed to send POWER_MODE: Command timed out.
Sep 27 02:14:21 jk-laptop kernel: [26143.404000] ipw2200: Failed to send TX_POWER: Command timed out.
Here a few other things that might be useful:
root@jk-laptop:~# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to AGP Controller (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10]
02:02.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401 100Base-T (rev 01)
02:04.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection (rev 05)
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx21/x515 Cardbus Controller
02:06.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
02:06.3 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx21 Integrated FlashMedia Controller
root@jk-laptop:~# uname -a
Linux jk-laptop 2.6.22-12-generic #1 SMP Sun Sep 23 18:11:30 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux
root@jk-laptop:~# lsmod | grep ipw
ipw2200 149320 0
ieee80211 35656 1 ipw2200
root@jk-laptop:~# dmesg | grep ipw
[ 17.520000] ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.0kmprq
[ 17.520000] ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[ 17.520000] ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
[ 17.812000] ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
[ 17.812000] ipw2200: Detected geography ZZM (11 802.11bg channels, 0 802.11a channels)
[21704.764000] ipw2200: Failed to send POWER_MODE: Command timed out.
[21758.712000] ipw2200: Failed to send TX_POWER: Command timed out.
[21879.376000] ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.0kmprq
[21879.376000] ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[21879.380000] ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
[21879.632000] ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
[21879.636000] ipw2200: Detected geography ZZM (11 802.11bg channels, 0 802.11a channels)
[22595.676000] ipw2200: Failed to send POWER_MODE: Command timed out.
[22605.296000] ipw2200: Failed to send POWER_MODE: Command timed out.
[23199.980000] ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.0kmprq
[23199.980000] ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[23199.984000] ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
[23200.108000] ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
[23200.108000] ipw2200: Detected geography ZZM (11 802.11bg channels, 0 802.11a channels)
[24040.012000] ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.0kmprq
[24040.012000] ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[24040.012000] ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
[24040.152000] ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
[24040.156000] ipw2200: Detected geography ZZM (11 802.11bg channels, 0 802.11a channels)
[24938.468000] ipw2200: Failed to send POWER_MODE: Command timed out.
[26138.552000] ipw2200: Failed to send POWER_MODE: Command timed out.
[26143.404000] ipw2200: Failed to send TX_POWER: Command timed out.
| description: | updated |
| description: | updated |

I think I'm having similar problem on a Toshiba laptop with Intel 2200 card since yesterday upgrade.
If I boot with the switch hardware card on, I can connect to the AP.
Turning it off during a gutsy session I get with dmesg:
[ 1778.508000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x95 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 1778.508000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e015 <keycode>' to make it known.
turning it on again I get:
[ 1791.848000] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0x95 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 1791.848000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e015 <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 1793.804000] ipw2200: Failed to send CARD_DISABLE: Command timed out.
and now on I cannot connect to internet neither ping the AP.
The strange thing is that with iwconfig the card seems to be connected to the AP (I see it's MAC address)