Ubuntu 9.10 32bits on Thinkpad T40p: wireless seen but not working

[Sylvain Prévost]

I installed Ubuntu 9.10 32bits on my IBM Thinkpad T40p (2373-G1G)
I am using the Wireless network icon to choose the network (the SSID is not hidden) and give my password. There is no other option (the wireless security list only contains one entry: "WPA & WPA2 Personal). After a few minutes during which the network icon shows a search activity, I am getting back the window asking for my password (but without any error message such as "wrong password")

I am not making a mistake with the password (checked) and the wireless is OK (currently 2 other computers seeing and using it).

I am normally using WPA-TKIP (pre-shared key). My router can also use WPA2 (AES), but selecting this option on the router did not help for my laptop.

I believe that previously I had to install a proprietary driver to have it working. With this 9.10 version I am not getting any suggestion for proprietary driver (even not the ATI card). I do remember that using ArchLinux with opensource drivers, a year ago or so, it was not working as well.

Among many other things, "sudo lshw -C network" gives that:
product: AR5211 802.11ab NIC
vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
physical id: 2

I believe I have this card:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/IBM_Du...ni_PCI_Adapter

Chipset: Atheros AR5001X
IEEE Standards: 802.11a, 802.11b
PCI ID: 168c:0012

Thanks in advance for the help!

[chili555]

Let's see which driver is being used. Please do:

lsmod | grep ath

We hope it is ath5k. Also, let's verify if your card and driver are actually capable of WPA. Please do:

ifconfig

Is your wireless interface ath0 or wlan0? Whichever one it is, please do this command:

sudo iwlist wlan0 auth

Substitute your interface if it's ath0. It will then tell you what your card can do with its current driver.

[skuli.arnlaugsson]

Hi!

I'm experiencing the exact same problem on the exact same kind of computer (T40p 2373 G1G). My wireless worked fine on 8.10, but then I updated to 9.10 and I can no longer access my home WPA network (using airport extreme to manage my wireless).

I ran the commands you mentioned, and its ath5k, and my wlan0 can authenticate WPA, WPA2 and more.

Any ideas how to fix this?

[chili555]

Please try:

sudo rmmod -f ath5k
sudo moprobe ath5k nohwcrypt=1

Does the behavior improve?

[skuli.arnlaugsson]

Please try:

sudo rmmod -f ath5k
sudo moprobe ath5k nohwcrypt=1

Does the behavior improve?

No, I am afraid not. I still timeout while trying to connect to my WPA network. Any more ideas?

[skuli.arnlaugsson]

Chilli555: Do you think these directions will assist me? http://www.debianadmin.com/enable-wp...ntu-linux.html

[chili555]

Chilli555: Do you think these directions will assist me? http://www.debianadmin.com/enable-wp...ntu-linux.html

In Linux years, that's about 50 years old!

Posted by Admin on October 20th, 2006

I certainly would try this step to start:

sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant

I suspect this is really more a function of the ath5k driver, although I can't quite figure what.

[Sylvain Prévost]

Sorry for the delay. I am listing here the results of the suggested commands.

lsmod | grep ath
ath5k 124260 0
mac80211 181140 1 ath5k
ath 8060 1 ath5k
cfg80211 93052 3 ath5k,mac80211,ath
led_class 4096 2 ath5k,thinkpad_acpi

ifconfig
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:05:4e:41:97:de
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:11 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:15 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1363 (1.3 KB) TX bytes:1898 (1.8 KB)

sudo iwlist wlan0 auth
wlan0 Authentication capabilities :
WPA
WPA2
CIPHER-TKIP
CIPHER-CCMP
Current Authentication algorithm :
open

I tried
sudo rmmod -f ath5k
(accepted with no message)
then
sudo moprobe ath5k nohwcrypt=1
not accepted, with the message:
sudo: moprobe: command not found

Since then the network icon does not offer the wireless connection anymore.

>skuli.arnlaugsson, did you have such message and effect when trying the command?

the command
sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant
only resulted in a message informing that the latest version of wpasupplicant was already installed.

[chili555]

sudo moprobe ath5k nohwcrypt=1

My spelling is getting a bit rusty, isn't it. Sorry. Please try:

sudo rmmod -f ath5k
sudo modprobe ath5k nohwcrypt=1

Please let us know if connecting is easier.

[Sylvain Prévost]

YES! It does work now. Thanks a lot Chili555.

Now I do have a question: what was the problem exactly, and should I consider this as a bug and try and inform for this bug?

Also, totally unrelated to this topic but as skuli.arnlaugsson has exactly the same computer as me I would like to know if he had the same problems, and it probably does not deserve a new topic:

- when installing Ubuntu 9.10, at first Linux would not boot after Grub, and the disk ID was "not found". When re-installing, I saw that the boot loader would be installed on (hd0) by default, and I instead selected /sda. It worked.
- I really have the feeling that the graphics are significantly slower that it used to be, either on Linux or on Windows. I might simply have forgotten (I did not use this computer for quite some time), but I do believe this effect is real. Here I am using no "Visual effects", and still when moving windows there is some latency. With visual effects activated, it is even worst.

PS: How do I indicate that the thread is solved?