Fedora 16 64bit on desktop PC - Wireless problem

godSpell · #1 11th December 2011, 10:49 PM

Hi all,

I'm new to Fedora so I'm sorry if this question is noobish. Also, could I please ask you all to elaborate to some details when giving suggestions and advices? Thanks in advanced.

Right, firstly, this problem I'm having is not just with Fedora but also with other Linux distros, namely Ubuntu and openSUSE. Although I just want help with Fedora now. I've searched on Internet for solutions but found none. That's why I'm turning to Fedora forums for help

Secondly, the problem details:
my desktop PC freezes immediately when it gets connected to my home wireless Internet connection. My PC specs are as follow:

Motherboard -- Asrock N68-S3 UCC
CPU -- AMD Phenom 2 X4 AM3 3.3 GHz
GPU -- MSI ATI Radeon HD 5450 1GB
RAM -- 8GB DDR3 1333
HDD -- 750GB SATA2 7200RPM, 80GB IDE 7200RPM
PCI Wireless card -- TP-LINK TL-WN851ND (Atheros AR9287 chipset)

Even on live CD, it completely freezes when connected to the wireless connection.
I think this is a compatiblity issue with the Atheros because the behaviour was exactly the same with Ubuntu and openSUSE. It can't be the wireless router or connection though because I've been running Ubuntu 10.04 64bit on my laptop for ages and it has no problem whatsoever.

Finally, there were some peculiar behaviours during the installation process. I installed it from the live CD and the first time I attempted, it froze. So, I had to press and hold the shutdown button. Then, robooted and tried it again and it worked.

Also, the very first run from the hdd, it froze. Again, I had to hard-shutdown and tried for second time. It worked by that point.

Fyi, I installed it on the secondary hdd, 80GB IDE slave but left the boot loader on the main drive. I also set the hdd to be encrypted during the installation (just thought I'd mention).

Anyway, this is all the details of my problem. If anybody needs more info, details and so forth, let me know. I'll be on it asap. Really hope somebody could help me out cause I can't wait to start using Fedora and experience it

Thank you very much. Best regards.

RobertLaverick · #2 11th December 2011, 11:13 PM

I've done a little digging, and I see a number of people reporting similar problems with that Ahteros chip on a few different brands of linux, from what I see the most referenced fix is to load the ath5k kernel module with the nohwcrypt option.

Have you tried this already?

from what I can tell something like this will get it set

modprobe ath5k nohwcrypt

or you can do this kind of thing for doing it automaticaly

echo 'options ath5k nohwcrypt' >/etc/modprobe.d/ath5k.conf

and you should be able to check that by looking in /sys/modules/ath5k

I'm not exactly a linux pro either, but I hope this helps (or that someone else can turn this into some better instructions if I'm doing things wrong :-) )

godSpell · #3 12th December 2011, 12:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobertLaverick

I've done a little digging, and I see a number of people reporting similar problems with that Ahteros chip on a few different brands of linux, from what I see the most referenced fix is to load the ath5k kernel module with the nohwcrypt option.

Have you tried this already?

from what I can tell something like this will get it set

modprobe ath5k nohwcrypt

or you can do this kind of thing for doing it automaticaly

echo 'options ath5k nohwcrypt' >/etc/modprobe.d/ath5k.conf

and you should be able to check that by looking in /sys/modules/ath5k

I'm not exactly a linux pro either, but I hope this helps (or that someone else can turn this into some better instructions if I'm doing things wrong :-) )

Hey, thanks for the reply

What I can make out from what you said is
- type 'modprobe ath5k nohwcrypt' in terminal and this will use ath5k kernal module instead of ath9k, right?
- but if I want the OS to do this automatically, I can set it so by the follwing command
echo 'options ath5k nohwcrypt' >/etc/modprobe.d/ath5k.conf

I'm not sure what you meant by I can check in "/sys/modules/ath5k".
Does something appear after typing the previous command and I have to choose from it or??? If you wouldn't mind, could you please dumb it down a little for me?
I just don't have any clue on what we're trying to fix here. Thanks

Anyway, as I couldn't bare to just sit and wait so I kind of fiddled with the OS earlier (before you replied) and here are some updates to my problem profile:

1---The second time I logged into the system, it asked for my wireless connection password. Although the OS previously crashed connecting to it, seemed to recognise its name. So, I entered it and got connected! No freezing this time.
Then I went on looking around and tried to run the system update and guess what?
It froze and I had to hard-shutdown :S

2--- So, I rebooted but this time, didn't even get to the login screen but froze on the "F" sign. It was annoying. I shut down and rebooted it again.

3--- Finally, I got logged in and it automatically connected to the wireless connection.
About 2 minutes later, it got froze completely. And that was the end of my "exploration" lol.

All the issues aside, I'm quite surprised that Fedora takes a while to startup. Please don't hate me for saying this but on this PC, Windows 7 boots up faster. Maybe I need to do personalise and customise and so on.

Anyway, thanks for the reply and hope you can further elaborate. I'll also try and Google with the info you gave me at hand.
Cheers and regards.

fdrake · #4 12th December 2011, 12:54 AM

"Ahteros chips " are funny ,i do have an acer aspire!, what i can suggest you is have a dual boot with win so you can do your important suff and update your kernel.
can you please in the meantime post the output of some commands to make the rsearch easier:

Code:

sudo yum install lshw
sudo lshw -c Network

it looks like that there some conflict with some other module(s) that creates a kernel panic , i think....
any think interesting in your logs?
stimolate the kernel panic and hardboot again then check /var/log/message-****** the latest one should have some date/time numbers :

Quote:

tail -100 /var/log/message-****** > ~/myLog.txt

the last 100 lines before the shutdown should say someything! post them here.

godSpell · #5 12th December 2011, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Code:

sudo yum install lshw
sudo lshw -c Network

Well, I'm having trouble staying connected to the wireless because it kept freezing up so can't install lshw, I'm afraid. I gave it a try and it got hung at 76%.
Nevertheless, I hard-shutdown and tried it again but this time, I didn't even get a chance to open a terminal...the moment it got connected to the wireless connection, my PC was totally hung.
Long story short, I couldn't install lshw.

Quote:

Code:

tail -100 /var/log/message-****** > ~/myLog.txt

I'm sorry but I really don't get this either. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to replace the asterisks with something else (I tried it with my PC name and it didn't work) but I typed in exactly as you said and the response was

Code:

tail: cannot open '/var/log/message-******' for reading: No such file or directory

If that command was supposed to generate a text file named "myLog.txt" in the Home directory, it did but was empty.

Quote:

"Ahteros chips " are funny ,i do have an acer aspire!, what i can suggest you is have a dual boot with win so you can do your important suff and update your kernel.

I have an Acer Aspire 5542 and it used to be dual-boot with Win 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 but now, the latter is replaced by openSUSE 12.1 (which is what I'm using atm).
You see like you said my laptop has Atheros chipset as well, ath9k I think but it never gives me any problem. I'm beginning to wonder if it's because the wireless card on the desktop is PCI??? (Not sure if there's any wireless card out there that isn't installed in PCI though.)
As I explained in my first post, on my desktop PC; Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE all gave the same problem which is the current one. But on my laptop, they all work fine (I've not tested Fedora on it but I have a feeling it'll work just fine).

Well, my desktop PC is also dual-boot with Win 7 so in terms of usability, there's no problem. I just wanna move on from this issue and start using the OS but atm, seems a bit of a farcry.

However, I did try

Code:

sudo modprobe ath5k nohwcrypt

as RobertLeverick kindly suggested. Entering the command wasn't an issue. I connected to the wireless and for about 5 minutes, it was working fine. I even tried to install lshw but it gave me the following error msg

Code:

Error: Cannot retrieve repository metada (repomd.xml) for repository: updates. Please verify its path and try again.

Probably because previously I tried to install lshw and the PC crashed half way through.

So, I went on doing a Software Update but it gave me the following error msg

Code:

Problem connecting to a software source
There was a (possibly temporary) problem occuring to a software source. Please check the detailed error for further details.

I clicked on "More details" and it says

Code:

no such table: packages

Btw, I checked the software sources and out of the followings
Fedora 16 - x86_64
Fedora 16 - x86_64 - Test Updates
Fedora 16 - x86_64 - updates

ONLY the first one was checked. Is that the right way? Isn't the last one needed, too?
Anyway, I checked the last one myself and tried the software update again but it gave me the same error.
After that, the system froze up again. So, I shut it down, rebooted it and logged in again.

However, this time I just did the "sudo modprobe ath5k nohwcrypt" again and connected to the wireless.
Then, I just left it alone to see how long it'll last before getting frozen up again. It was about 8 minutes.

So, that's it. Rock bottom, Any more suggestions?

RobertLaverick · #6 12th December 2011, 11:59 AM

to sort out Yum you could try "sudo yum clean all" that should clear out anything it's part downloaded.

if you can't get lshw working, you could try getting us the output of lspci, lsmod and dmesg which should tell us a fair bit about your setup.

the problem with the tail command is that it should be /var/log/messages plural not singular.

godSpell · #7 12th December 2011, 01:16 PM

Right I've finally managed to install yum, thanks to RobertLeverick for the 'clean all' command. I did

Code:

sudo lshw -c Network

and following is what came up.

Code:

  *-network               
       description: Wireless interface
       product: AR9287 Wireless Network Adapter
       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
       physical id: 8
       bus info: pci@0000:01:08.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 01
       serial: f4:ec:38:db:dd:55
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64 firmware=N/A latency=168 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
       resources: irq:18 memory:fbef0000-fbefffff

As for the tail command, still no luck.

Code:

tail -100 /var/log/messages-****** > ~/myLog.txt
tail: cannot open `/var/log/messages-******' for reading: No such file or directory

Let me know if you need any more info from me. Thanks for the reply

godSpell · #8 15th December 2011, 06:21 PM

Any more ideas? Or you guys stumped as well lol?

fdrake · #9 15th December 2011, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by godSpell

Code:

sudo lshw -c Network.....
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64 firmware=N/A latency=168 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
....

ath5k is not being used . you probably need to balcklist ath9k first , so do this:

Code:

sudo echo “blacklist ath9k” >>  /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf 
sudo modprobe ath5k nohwcrypt

also check that ath5k is not blacklisted and that ath5k is present in the list of lsmod:

Code:

less /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf | grep ath5k
lsmod

and try the driver..

if you still have problems read the following lines

Quote:

Code:

tail -100 /var/log/messages-****** > ~/myLog.txt
tail: cannot open `/var/log/messages-******' for reading: No such file or directory

Let me know if you need any more info from me. Thanks for the reply

do this:

Code:

ls /var/log/mess*

you should see a list of files with numbers=>dates- copy the name of the most recent file and do

Code:

tail -100 /var/log/Name_of_File > ~/myLog.txt

it should save you some log entries in your home director. Open it with gedi or another text editor or attach it here. Rememebr to stimulate the bug that forces you to hard boot first, before doing this!

godSpell · #10 16th December 2011, 01:19 AM

Hello there, fdrake. Thank you for the reply

I've carried out what you suggested and come up with new results (though they may not necessarily be good ones).

I did this and gave me an error

Code:

sudo echo “blacklist ath9k” >>  /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
bash: /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf: permission denied

So, I searched on Internet a little bit and added ath9k to blacklist manually.

Code:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

#
# Listing a module here prevents the hotplug scripts from loading it.
# Usually that'd be so that some other driver will bind it instead,
# no matter which driver happens to get probed first.  Sometimes user
# mode tools can also control driver binding.
#
# Syntax: see modprobe.conf(5).
#

# watchdog drivers
blacklist i8xx_tco

# framebuffer drivers
blacklist aty128fb
blacklist atyfb
blacklist radeonfb
blacklist i810fb
blacklist cirrusfb
blacklist intelfb
blacklist kyrofb
blacklist i2c-matroxfb
blacklist hgafb
blacklist nvidiafb
blacklist rivafb
blacklist savagefb
blacklist sstfb
blacklist neofb
blacklist tridentfb
blacklist tdfxfb
blacklist virgefb
blacklist vga16fb
blacklist viafb


# ISDN - see bugs 154799, 159068
blacklist hisax
blacklist hisax_fcpcipnp

# sound drivers
blacklist snd-pcsp

# I/O dynamic configuration support for s390x (bz #563228)
blacklist chsc_sch

# Disabling ath9k driver cause it keeps freezing the PC (16/12/11)
blacklist ath9k

After that, I entered these 2 lines and seemed ok...no error msg whatsoever.

Code:

sudo modprobe ath5k nohwcrypt
less /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf | grep ath5k

The following is my lsmod and ath5k isn't in there. Btw, I'm sorry it's so long.

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
vfat                    8488  1 
fat                    44588  1 vfat
usb_storage            46027  1 
uas                     7775  0 
fuse                   61671  3 
fcoe                   18934  0 
libfcoe                30324  1 fcoe
libfc                  86826  2 fcoe,libfcoe
scsi_transport_fc      42905  2 fcoe,libfc
scsi_tgt               10503  1 scsi_transport_fc
8021q                  16999  0 
garp                    6091  1 8021q
stp                     1927  1 garp
llc                     4754  2 garp,stp
ip6t_REJECT             4008  2 
nf_conntrack_ipv6       7714  1 
nf_defrag_ipv6          9115  1 nf_conntrack_ipv6
ip6table_filter         1655  1 
ip6_tables             16776  1 ip6table_filter
nf_conntrack_ipv4       8310  1 
nf_defrag_ipv4          1513  1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
xt_state                1306  2 
nf_conntrack           67597  3 nf_conntrack_ipv6,nf_conntrack_ipv4,xt_state
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     23548  1 
snd_hda_codec_via      34891  1 
joydev                  9567  0 
snd_usb_audio         105329  1 
uvcvideo               56989  0 
snd_usbmidi_lib        18071  1 snd_usb_audio
videodev               78689  1 uvcvideo
snd_rawmidi            19878  1 snd_usbmidi_lib
media                  11511  2 uvcvideo,videodev
v4l2_compat_ioctl32     7665  1 videodev
ppdev                   7360  0 
snd_hda_intel          24072  2 
snd_hda_codec          85181  3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_via,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep               6264  2 snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_codec
snd_seq                52186  0 
snd_seq_device          5941  2 snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd_pcm                78514  4 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_usb_audio,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
microcode              18539  0 
edac_core              40154  0 
edac_mce_amd           13234  0 
serio_raw               4298  0 
k10temp                 3295  0 
forcedeth              47577  0 
snd_timer              19372  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd                    63124  18 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_via,snd_usb_audio,snd_usbmidi_lib,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore               6267  1 snd
snd_page_alloc          7311  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
parport_pc             19600  0 
parport                32310  2 ppdev,parport_pc
i2c_nforce2             5918  0 
uinput                  7230  0 
xts                     2455  6 
gf128mul                7170  1 xts
dm_crypt               14806  1 
pata_acpi               3419  0 
ata_generic             3587  0 
sata_nv                19805  0 
pata_amd               11149  2 
radeon                691201  3 
ttm                    55029  1 radeon
drm_kms_helper         26490  1 radeon
drm                   194532  5 radeon,ttm,drm_kms_helper
i2c_algo_bit            4958  1 radeon
i2c_core               25728  6 videodev,i2c_nforce2,radeon,drm_kms_helper,drm,i2c_algo_bit

Anyway, after doing all of this, I thought I'd give a wi-fi a try and see if it makes any difference. So, I tried software update, and the PC got frozen up straightaway.

So, I rebooted and thought I'd give it another try but when I logged back into the system, there was no wireless option listed under the network settings anymore. There was only "wired" network option. I did the lshw -c Network and...

Code:

  *-network UNCLAIMED     
       description: Network controller
       product: AR9287 Wireless Network Adapter
       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
       physical id: 8
       bus info: pci@0000:01:08.0
       version: 01
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=32
       resources: memory:fbef0000-fbefffff

I don't think the description "UNCLAIMED" is a good thing, is it?

Long story short, it still didn't work out (in fact, no wi-fi option avail. anymore) but with the kind of help I've been getting since registration here; I think I can be a little positive heheh. At least now, you have a better view of the problem.
Anyway, thank you.

godSpell · #11 16th December 2011, 01:26 AM

I also managed to get the ls /var/log/mess* and there was ONLY ONE file called /var/log/messages.

Please see the attachment file (use Notepadd++ or similar if you're on Windows).

fdrake · #12 16th December 2011, 03:12 AM

ok I have a good news and a bad news for you... read whatever you like first: :P
-------Bad News---------
After a more deep research on your wireless netwotk card I found the following conclussions:
Your card, indeed, works with driver ath9k! (Sorry I was just assuming that the other member had tried ath5k driver on your kind of card, but no worrries that's easy to revert!). Your card was suported since the release of kernel 6.32 , but after an update change (precisely at 6.38) a lot of ppl have encountered some problemsm probably due to some kind of compatibility issues of the driver(ath9k) with the new kernel. (again this is related only to your specific card not to all the cards using ath9k!: lucky you!)

------Good News-------
Even if you may think you are out of hope there are few things you can try before you despair!

1- create you own patch (guess it's time to learn C and how to build the linux Kernel! Don't worry we all get there, even if you don't want to....

)...but let's use it as a fuuuuutttuuuurrreeeeee option..

2- Use a linux distribution pre kernel 2.6.38 and post kernel 2.6.32 (ubuntu10.04(i higly suggest it, try the live cd) , suse, fedora 14, any of them should do it). But make sure you run only the updates you really need. This iis not windows, unless you really need an update, run the update manage> if your system is fully functional don't run any aptdates, you just don't need it....

3- there are some "possible fixes" to this problem even if using kernel post 2.6.38. I will just post here the links for you to read...Note for some ppl they work for others don't...
a. use "sudo yum install" in place of "sudo apt-get install" : http://www.fir3net.com/Debian-/-Ubun...rack-4-r2.html
b. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1835190
c. "sudo modprobe -r acer-wmi" from post #3 : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1827536

google "linux ar9287" for more results and tries

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before yoy try those different solutions, first activate ath9k in your system:
1.
like you did, use gedit as root (or as your user with gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf) delete the line you added, or just put a "#" in front of it like this:

Quote:

#blacklist ath9k

2.
enable the driver/reboot and after that test the output with lshw (check the driver entry and make sure ath9k is in there)

Code:

sudo modprobe ath9k
sudo reboot
lshw -c network

if you have problems with renabling ath9k post here... we will try to fix the error we did.. sorry.....

PS:
-For future reference check this site for wireless network card related drivers: http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Dr...Enabling_ath9k

godSpell · #13 16th December 2011, 03:32 PM

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Funny you should mention Ubuntu 10.04 cause it's my favourite! You see I was introduced to Linux by Ubuntu. I had been using it for 2 years but when I saw that ghastly interface of 11.10, I thought I'd like to take a break from it and check out other distros.
That's why I said in my first post that I've tried Ubuntu 11.10, openSUSE 12.1 and now, Fedora 16 on my desktop; and they all gave me the same problem with the wireless card.

Several hours ago, I installed Ubuntu 10.04 on my desktop PC. Installation went well and using Internet is fine as well! I've even installed all the updates.
But the problem starts when I used Synaptics,...it just got hung. Twice I tried to install some applications that I need and it behaved the same.

So, I guess I've got the same problem at hand more or less. It's a little bit better though because I can use Internet and the OS environment is somewhat familiar.

Thank you for all the suggestions and explanations. I really appreciate it, you know.
Learnt something about Fefora, at least.

It's funny how ath9k driver can give so much trouble on my desktop PC. My acer aspire laptop uses ath9k as well but it never gives any trouble whatsoever.
If push comes to shove, I may have to get another PCI wireless card I guess :|

Anyways....since I've uninstalled Fedora 16 from my hdd, I probably won't be coming here that often (like last several days). fdrake if you're on Ubuntu forums as well, add me as a friend! My username is the same, Godspell

Many thanks and regards.

fdrake · #14 16th December 2011, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by godSpell

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Funny you should mention Ubuntu 10.04 cause it's my favourite! You see I was introduced to Linux by Ubuntu. I had been using it for 2 years but when I saw that ghastly interface of 11.10, I thought I'd like to take a break from it and check out other distros.
That's why I said in my first post that I've tried Ubuntu 11.10, openSUSE 12.1 and now, Fedora 16 on my desktop; and they all gave me the same problem with the wireless card.

Several hours ago, I installed Ubuntu 10.04 on my desktop PC. Installation went well and using Internet is fine as well! I've even installed all the updates.
But the problem starts when I used Synaptics,...it just got hung. Twice I tried to install some applications that I need and it behaved the same.

So, I guess I've got the same problem at hand more or less. It's a little bit better though because I can use Internet and the OS environment is somewhat familiar.

Thank you for all the suggestions and explanations. I really appreciate it, you know.
Learnt something about Fefora, at least.

It's funny how ath9k driver can give so much trouble on my desktop PC. My acer aspire laptop uses ath9k as well but it never gives any trouble whatsoever.
If push comes to shove, I may have to get another PCI wireless card I guess :|

Anyways....since I've uninstalled Fedora 16 from my hdd, I probably won't be coming here that often (like last several days). fdrake if you're on Ubuntu forums as well, add me as a friend! My username is the same, Godspell

Many thanks and regards.

indeed I am there too , same name, same avatar. In hereI have encountered a lot of ppl from ubuntu, that's funny. I will send u a friend request!! see you there then...