Acer laptop & ipw2200: Recent upgrade breaks radio kill-switch

Bug #145290 reported by jfs
18
This bug affects 1 person
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 '2.6.22-12-generic')

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:""
          Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power=off Sensitivity=8/0
          Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key: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
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:10 Base address:0x2000 Memory:d0208000-d0208fff

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-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
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-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
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.

Tags: kj-expired
jfs (jfschmakeit)
description: updated
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Luca Carrogu (motoplux) wrote :

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)

Revision history for this message
jfs (jfschmakeit) wrote :

This is rather strange - but it seems to have fixed itself somehow.
Now I am able to turn the WLAN on or off using the front-button again, although the key-press is still not recognised properly - but it works nevertheless.

The only thing I did was boot into Windows a few days ago, properly connect to an AP and access the Internet - that's all. Apart from that I installed the following (seemingly unrelated) upgrades: libparted1.7-1_1.7.1-5.1ubuntu8; parted_1.7.1-5.1ubuntu8; flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.48.0.0ubuntu11
(I am quite sure that the problem still occurred after I upgraded linux-ubuntu-modules and a few other more main packages a few days ago...)

Also, the error seems to be slightly different now when I press the button. (dmesg output:)
[ 426.032000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xd6 on isa0060/serio0).

[ 426.032000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e056 <keycode>' to make it known.

[ 426.040000] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xd6 on isa0060/serio0).

[ 426.040000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e056 <keycode>' to make it known.

[ 430.432000] ipw2200: Failed to send RSN_CAPABILITIES: Command timed out.

[ 431.440000] ipw2200: Failed to send SSID: Command timed out.

The WLAN-card is disabled without a problem, but these errors still appear in the logs.

This is the dmesg output when I press the WLAN-button again to enable the wireless card:
[ 606.356000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xd5 on isa0060/serio0).

[ 606.356000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e055 <keycode>' to make it known.

[ 606.368000] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xd5 on isa0060/serio0).

[ 606.368000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e055 <keycode>' to make it known.

[ 608.448000] ipw2200: Failed to send CARD_DISABLE: Command timed out.

Again, enabling the card works without a problem.

This is really strange and I have no idea what caused the change...

motoplux, can you use iwconfig to enable the card somehow? (something like iwconfig eth1 txpower on) I'm just wondering if you get the same timeouts as I got before when I tried doing that.
iwconfig reports to me that I am connected to an AP, although the card is turned off (either using the hardware-button or the iwconfig txpower off-command...) - this seems to be its normal behaviour?

Revision history for this message
Luca Carrogu (motoplux) wrote :

Well.
I remember that doing a "sudo ifconfig eth1 down" end then watching at iwconfig output I just saw "no wireless extension".
But now iwconfig says me that I'm connected, always. Also when the hardware switch is turned off...

I'm totally confused

Sometimes I can connect but If I try to ping the AP I get enormous latency time 1000-2000 ms, sometimes normal 1.4 ms... totally random
and sometimes in the dmesg output I see "Sep 28 16:12:54 localhost kernel: [ 270.684000] ipw2200: Firmware error detected. Restarting."

I'm totally stuck. Now I'm thinking that my card can be broken. I hope no

Revision history for this message
geezmo (geezmo07) wrote :

Hi,

On my Acer Extensa 3000 I found following behavior. Sometimes the radio kill-switch doesn't work and iwconfig shows radio off. hitting the button has no effect. after restarting, booting windows, switching wlan on there and rebooting again the button works fine. When connecting to my wlan I have to connect twice all the time because the first time I loose connections after a few seconds. The second time it works the whole day. I'm sitting just about 5m away and the signal is quite well ;) so thats not the problem.

Please recommendations or fix this.

Revision history for this message
Arend-Henk Huzen (ahrhuzen-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Hi,

The same here. After an update yesterday - oct. 6th - the radio kill switch is "out-of-order". I use an Acer Aspire 3612.
Current kernel version: 2.6.22-13-generic #1 SMP

Pressing the radio button give the following output in the syslog:
[ 5978.912000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e055 <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 5978.912000] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xd5 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 5978.680000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e055 <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 5978.680000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xd5 on isa0060/serio0).

The following log-items suggest that the problem has to do with Broadcom wireless card:
[ 6465.300000] bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.
main: error loading '/lib/firmware/bcm43xx_microcode5.fw' for device '/class/firmware/0000:06:05.0' with driver 'bcm43xx'

On my other laptop, Acer 5514, no trouble at all. Differences between the two:
Acer 3612
06:05.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)

Acer 5514
06:03.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection (rev 05)

Revision history for this message
Simon_Brannstrom (simon-brannstrom) wrote :

Is there any solution to this issue yet? I am experiencing the exact same problem. It was working fine for a while but I hardly ever use the wireless card so I've not noticed it until now.
Big bump on this issue.

Revision history for this message
jfs (jfschmakeit) wrote :

I haven't been able to find a solution to this problem yet..
Sometimes I'm able to switch my wlan-card on from Linux - sometimes (basically all the time) it just doesn't work unless I boot into Windows first, press the button and boot in Ubuntu again...

The error-messages I'm getting are still the same as before.. I talked to a few people about my problem and it seems like this problem is related to the "new" way Linux is handling these special-keys..

Unfortunately I haven't been able to solve this mystery... It's a pity that it is making my wireless so hard to use.. (Maybe anyone has an idea what packages/modules are be the cause of this problem?)

Revision history for this message
Daniel T Chen (crimsun) wrote :

Is this symptom still reproducible in 8.10 RC or later?

Changed in wireless-tools:
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote :

This is a bug in either the kernel, or in acpi-support if it's an issue of the keypress not being handled correctly. It's not a bug in wireless-tools, which has nothing to do with the kill switch. Reassigning.

Can the users seeing this please test with a more recent Ubuntu release as well?

Revision history for this message
akssoon (akssoon) wrote :

I'm experiencing a similar problem and was going to report it as a new bug, but found this one instead. I hope my version of the problem fits.

I used Hardy Heron for the last 3 weeks or so and noticed that my wireless kill switch doesn't work when I boot my laptop after a complete shutdown. So I recently updated to Intrepid Ibex and will in the future update to "whatever the next version is called" ;-) but the problem is still present.
By not working I mean that "nothing" happens when I move the kill switch into the ON or OFF position (I observed the usual log files dmesg, messages, syslog and kern.log). The only thing I do notice every time I get into that state are the following two lines during boot in the kern.log and messages log:

Mar 23 07:46:03 snibril kernel: [ 20.363271] ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
Mar 23 07:46:03 snibril kernel: [ 20.363274] Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.

In order to get my wireless to work, I have to:
* boot into Windows XP
* log in
* activate wireless (which means turning the kill switch OFF I guess?)
* reboot into Ubuntu

Funny enough if I have my wireless kill switch working in Ubuntu and do a reboot into Ubuntu the kill switch still works as intended. Only a complete shutdown gets me back to square one where I have to boot into Windows XP first. I haven't tested suspend to RAM or suspend to disk. That's it basically.
Info that might be helpfull:
Laptop: Acer TravelMate 290 (I think the exact version is something like TravelMate 292LMI but I'm not sure)
Ubuntu: Intrepid Ibex
Linux Kernel version: 2.6.27-11-generic
I also attached an "lspci -vv" output of my laptop in case it is needed.

If anything else is needed just tell me! I'd really like to get this fixed so I'll be checking this report daily

Thanks for reading

Revision history for this message
Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote :

this really sounds like a kernel issue rather than an acpi-support issue; reassigning.

Changed in wireless-tools:
status: New → Invalid
Revision history for this message
akssoon (akssoon) wrote :

I remembered using a kernel module called "acerhk" in the past to get the wireless kill switch to work. I search for it in the package database and found the package "acerhk-source". Should I try that package and see if that resolves my issue?

Revision history for this message
akssoon (akssoon) wrote :

I found out that Ubuntu 8.10 already comes with the acerhk module precompiled. It just doesn't get loaded automatically. So I took care of that and now I can at least activate my wireless card if I do a:

sudo echo 1 > /proc/driver/acerhk/wirelessled

I know there's a way to have this command run at bootup, I just have to find it again.
I also downloaded the jaunty jackalope beta live cd and did a test run without the acerhk module and it seems that the problem remains the same with that version.

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee) wrote :

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

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

tags: added: kj-expired
Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Expired
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