Wifi issue on Lenovo S10-3

[Griog]

Hi

I installed Fedora 14 x86-64 (and made all available updates) on a lenovo S10-3 netbook but I do not manage to enable wifi. Looks like it is hard-blocked but I just can not figure out why.

Here is the output of the 'rfkill list' command:

# rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes

Using the unblock command does not change anything:

# rfkill unblock all
# rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes

There is actually a switch button for the wifi but toggling it on/off does not change anything to the outputs listed above. Wifi is enabled in the BIOS.

By the way, the output of lspci is

# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation N10 Family DMI Bridge
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation N10 Family Integrated Graphics Controller
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation N10 Family Integrated Graphics Controller
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation NM10 Family LPC Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH7 Family SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 02)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
09:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)

Thanks for your help!

[SiliconSlick]

What is the output of:

iwconfig
lsmod | grep ath

?

SS

[Griog]

Here it is:

# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          
vboxnet0  no wireless extensions.

# lsmod | grep ath
ath9k                  86135  0 
ath9k_common            5294  1 ath9k
ath9k_hw              283034  2 ath9k,ath9k_common
ath                     9505  2 ath9k,ath9k_hw
mac80211              229047  2 ath9k,ath9k_common
cfg80211              134933  4 ath9k,ath9k_common,ath,mac80211

Thanks for your time

[SiliconSlick]

The lsmod looks good/right. The iwconfig is concerning. First there is the Tx-Power=off. Maybe it should be that way when not connected but it seems fishy. Second things is the vboxnet0. Do you have vbox running and could it have possibly usurped the device? (i.e. what happens if you don't run vbox)

Both those things may not be issues. But given that ath9k is already loaded successfully (and wlan0 exists), I'm not sure what to suggest (other, than, maybe finding out if the Tx-Power values changes when you toggle the switch).

SS

[Griog]

Well, I had indeed virtualbox running. I un-installed it in order to be 100% sure it was not inferring but it does not change much (shall the switch be on or off, I get the same result):

# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off

Tx-power does not change when I toggle the switch. I furthermore tried to manually turn on tx-power but it looks like this does not change anything neither (I tried that with both the switch on or off):

# iwconfig wlan0 txpower on
# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          
# iwconfig wlan0 txpower 15
# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off

Anyway, thanks again for your help!

[SiliconSlick]

I was poking around the bugzilla and found this:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=671514

so, you might try going back to kernel-2.6.35.9-64.fc14. e.g.

cd /tmp/
wget http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/14/Fedora/x86_64/os/Packages/kernel-2.6.35.6-45.fc14.x86_64.rpm
rpm -i kernel-2.6.35.6-45.fc14.x86_64.rpm --oldpackage

Note that you'll want to update /etc/yum.conf and either change installonly_limit to at least 5 (I'd go 10) or add a exclude=kernel line until they release a kernel that works to keep this (old) kernel from being removed from the system.


You'll also want to update /boot/grub/grub.conf to:
a) increase the timeout if you don't have one so you can select kernels at boot (10 is usually long enough)
b) set the default to point to the newly-installed old kernel (if it doesn't get set that way when installed... yum updates will change though... so...).

To keep yum from changing the kernel as it installs new ones, edit /etc/sysconfig/kernel and change UPDATEDEFAULT to 'no'.

SS

[Griog]

Well, this does not work neither...

Well maybe is the switch broken? That's unlikely since the laptop is new but who knows... Is there a "simple" way to check that on Fedora? If not, I guess I will have to install another OS

Thanks for your patience

[SiliconSlick]

You could try booting LiveCDs from Fedora 13 or 12 (if the LiveCD for 14 has the same problem) and might be able to determine if the hardware is working. ???

I would try out various LiveCDs from different distributions before installing another OS. Just to test.

SS

[Griog]

Hi,

Well, wifi does not work neither on Ubuntu 10.10 (netbook ed and i386 ed. ), CentOS 5.5 x86-64bits and Fedora 14 x86-64bits live-USBs (same "symptoms"). I'll try with Fedora 13 or 12 tomorrow just to be sure but I have only very little hope that the harware is working at all.... Anyway, I'll let you know

Thanks for having helped me!

[Griog]

Hi,

It was indeed the switch that was broken... Sorry for all that mess.

Regards,

Griog