Intel 6150 wireless not detected with F14

[Setlew]

Hello,

First, I apologize if this topic was already covered elsewhere. I searched the forums before posting this, and couldn't find any relevant info.

OK, so I have a Lenovo IdeaPad V570 with an Intel Centrino Wireless-N 6150 network adapter inside it. I installed Fedora 14 onto the IdeaPad using the DVD from the 2011 Fedora Bible, then installed over a gigabyte of updated using a wired connection. The wireless adapter was not detected before or after the updates were installed in GNOME's Network Manager applet.

Running lshw -C network yields:

  *-network UNCLAIMED     
       description: Network controller
       product: Intel Corporation
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       version: 67
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:d0500000-d0501fff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 06
       serial: f0:de:f1:5c:86:8e
       size: 100Mbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full ip=192.168.1.4 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s
       resources: irq:45 ioport:2000(size=256) memory:d0404000-d0404fff memory:d0400000-d0403fff

Running lsmod yields:

Module                  Size  Used by
nls_utf8                1041  1 
fuse                   51887  3 
rmd160                  6136  0 
crypto_null             2142  0 
camellia               17759  0 
lzo                     1089  0 
lzo_compress            1602  1 lzo
cast6                   8113  0 
cast5                  15276  0 
deflate                 1543  0 
zlib_deflate           16199  1 deflate
cts                     2865  0 
ctr                     2953  0 
gcm                    10320  0 
ccm                     6285  0 
serpent                18049  0 
blowfish                7246  0 
twofish                 5395  0 
twofish_common         12658  1 twofish
ecb                     1595  0 
xcbc                    1991  0 
cbc                     2161  0 
sha256_generic         11347  0 
sha512_generic          6638  0 
des_generic            15895  0 
aes_i586                7138  0 
geode_aes               4245  0 
aes_generic            26460  1 aes_i586
ah6                     4471  0 
ah4                     3939  0 
esp6                    3905  0 
esp4                    4104  0 
xfrm4_mode_beet         1610  0 
xfrm4_tunnel            1439  0 
tunnel4                 2005  1 xfrm4_tunnel
xfrm4_mode_tunnel       1418  0 
xfrm4_mode_transport      981  0 
xfrm6_mode_transport     1013  0 
xfrm6_mode_ro            858  0 
xfrm6_mode_beet         1423  0 
xfrm6_mode_tunnel       1455  0 
ipcomp                  1585  0 
ipcomp6                 1602  0 
xfrm_ipcomp             3353  2 ipcomp,ipcomp6
xfrm6_tunnel            3145  1 ipcomp6
tunnel6                 1880  1 xfrm6_tunnel
af_key                 22999  0 
sunrpc                165546  1 
cpufreq_ondemand        7262  4 
acpi_cpufreq            6285  0 
mperf                   1141  1 acpi_cpufreq
ip6t_REJECT             3470  2 
nf_conntrack_ipv6      14441  2 
ip6table_filter         1207  1 
ip6_tables              9937  1 ip6table_filter
ipv6                  229581  55 ah6,esp6,xfrm6_mode_beet,xfrm6_mode_tunnel,ipcomp6,xfrm6_tunnel,tunnel6,ip6t_REJECT,nf_conntrack_ipv6
uinput                  5228  0 
snd_hda_codec_intelhdmi     8713  1 
snd_hda_codec_realtek   210796  1 
snd_hda_intel          20163  2 
snd_hda_codec          71701  3 snd_hda_codec_intelhdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
iTCO_wdt                8960  0 
acer_wmi               12997  0 
uvcvideo               49225  0 
rfkill                 13652  2 acer_wmi
iTCO_vendor_support     2070  1 iTCO_wdt
videodev               60378  1 uvcvideo
i2c_i801                9016  0 
wmi                     6667  1 acer_wmi
snd_hwdep               4795  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_seq                43435  0 
snd_seq_device          5056  1 snd_seq
snd_pcm                61769  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_timer              15435  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
joydev                  7306  0 
r8169                  31837  0 
mii                     3578  1 r8169
snd                    47397  13 snd_hda_codec_intelhdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm,snd_timer
microcode              11149  0 
soundcore               5088  1 snd
snd_page_alloc          6180  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
i915                  242432  1 
drm_kms_helper         22278  1 i915
drm                   139248  2 i915,drm_kms_helper
i2c_algo_bit            4197  1 i915
i2c_core               21552  6 videodev,i2c_i801,i915,drm_kms_helper,drm,i2c_algo_bit
video                  17730  1 i915
output                  1625  1 video

Running ifconfig yields:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr F0:DE:F1:5C:86:8E  
          inet addr:192.168.1.4  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::f2de:f1ff:fe5c:868e/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2560 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1871 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:2225801 (2.1 MiB)  TX bytes:341072 (333.0 KiB)
          Interrupt:45 Base address:0xe000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:35 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:35 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:3209 (3.1 KiB)  TX bytes:3209 (3.1 KiB)

The driver for this adapter is installed (for the iwl6050 series) by default, and this adapter should be supported in this kernel version (2.6.35.13-92.fc14.i686, according to uname -a), according to the Intel Linux Wireless site.

What should I do to resolve this problem?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[bbfuller]

Hello Setlew

Welcome to the forum.

Usually, the Intel range of wireless cards are some of the easiest to get going.

If you are sure that you have a 6150 and that the 6050 firmware supports it, you would normally expect to see the 'iwlagn' module loading in the output from lsmod.

I wonder if there is an electronic switch that is disabling the card.

There is a program that may help prove that.

yum install rfkill

And then:

rfkill list

This rfkill program is supplementary to the rfkill showing in your 'lsmod' output.

Documentation here:

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Documentation/rfkill

[stevea]

The information that is NEEDED is the result of
sudo lspci -nnk

Just post the bits for the specific device if you wish.


Still the device appears to be UNCLAIMED - but we don't know the vendor/part ID so I can't tell you if your kernel supports it. I strongly suspect bbfuller's conjecture is correct.

[Setlew]

Thank you both for the responses. In order:

(1) Running rfkill list yields the following:

0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: yes
    Hard blocked: no

I tried running rfkill unblock 0 and rfkill unblock all, but received the same output from rfkill list after running each of these commands. I tried flipping the hardware switch on the front of the IdeaPad and re-running rfkill list to see if the "Hard blocked" section would update, but it didn't. This puzzles me, as well as the labeling of the internal adapter as "acer wireless" (given that this laptop is a Lenovo).

(2) The network-related portion of the output of lspci -nnk is:

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0886] (rev 67)
    Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:1315]
03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 06)
    Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:3975]
    Kernel driver in use: r8169
    Kernel modules: r8169

From what I can find from Googling info about the wireless info given in this output snippet, "8086/0886" corresponds with the Intel Centrino Wireless-N 6150 adapter, which Windows' Device Manager confirms I have in this system.

What should I do from here?

[bbfuller]

Hello Setlew

I'm not sure where we go from here. I hope "stevea" has some other ideas.

I do remember hearing of laptops where the wireless is turned off by default in the bios and Windows turns it on.

It may be worth taking a look there to see if there is a setting to have it on by default.

---------- Post added at 03:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:09 PM ----------

Hello Setlew

I've also found this thread on the Ubuntu forums:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1796399&page=2

where someone was having the same trouble as you.

They tried:

modprobe iwlagn

to force the module to load with no luck, but did reach a successful conclusion with the latest version of Ubuntu.

Can I suggest that you try a Fedora 15 live CD and see if that is an answer here as well.

[Setlew]

Thanks for the suggestions. I had tried a F15 live CD, which seemed to detect the adapter but refused to turn it on in software in the Network Manager; in other words, the "Airplane Mode" switch was on, but clicking the button to actually turn the wireless on resulted in it turning on momentarily (in that the switch turned on and changed to a blue color), then turning back off. Not sure what was causing that; I'll check the BIOS settings after I finish doing some other work on the laptop.

I'd prefer to stick with F14 over F15 at this point, due to concerns about the usability of the GNOME 3 desktop and some underlying changes in the software development tools between F14 and F15 which I'd like to avoid for the time being. I know that at least one other distribution detects the wireless out of the box (PCLinuxOS 2011.6), but would prefer to stick with Fedora over other distributions, if possible.

[bbfuller]

Hello Setlew

You might care to try 'rfkill' with the F15 live CD. It'll at least give more information to work on.

Not sure what we would do with F14 if it did turn out to be the answer though.

[Setlew]

Checked out the BIOS, and the wireless is enabled.

Booted F15, installed rfkill, and ran rfkill list:

0: ideapad_wlan: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
1: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no
2: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

Running rfkill unblock all turns the wireless on momentarily as before, but then it turns back off, and running rfkill list again produces the same results as before.

IDK what's going on here. Is acer_wireless perhaps some module blocking all other access to the network adapter in F14 and F15?

--------------------

Edit: I installed a newer kernel (2.6.37) on F14 for some other work I was doing, and now there's a section in the "Network Connections" drop-down menu for Wireless Connections, although the only entry in this section is a grayed-out line stating "wireless is disabled". Running lspci -nnk again produces:

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0886] (rev 67)
    Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:1315]
    Kernel driver in use: iwlagn
    Kernel modules: iwlagn

Running rfkill list produces:

0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: yes
    Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

Running rfkill unblock all and rfkill list, as before, doesn't change anything; but just updating the kernel to 2.6.37 changed this much; maybe someone with a better idea of recent kernel developments than myself has some idea of what's going on here?

Thanks again for all help and suggestions.

[bbfuller]

Hello Setlew

I really don't know any further than that. As you have proved, it appears to be a kernel thing as far as your card is concerned.

It might be instructive to run:

dmesg | grep iwl

now that the kernel module is loading and see if we can trap any error messages that might give some other clue.

[Setlew]

Here's what dmesg | grep iwl has to say:

[   12.148120] iwlagn: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, in-tree:d
[   12.148123] iwlagn: Copyright(c) 2003-2010 Intel Corporation
[   12.148216] iwlagn 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[   12.148270] iwlagn 0000:02:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   12.148357] iwlagn 0000:02:00.0: Detected 6050 Series 1x2 BGN Gen2, REV=0x84
[   12.159182] iwlagn 0000:02:00.0: device EEPROM VER=0x557, CALIB=0x6
[   12.159206] iwlagn 0000:02:00.0: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 0 802.11a channels
[   12.159719] iwlagn 0000:02:00.0: irq 44 for MSI/MSI-X
[   12.185562] iwlagn 0000:02:00.0: loaded firmware version 41.28.5.1 build 33926
[   12.346017] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-agn-rs'

No obvious errors here (to my inexperienced eyes, anyway). I'm stumped.

[bbfuller]

Hello Setlew

Neither to mine.

I found this thread on Google Groups and the second post seems to pertain to your problem with a possible fix that needs to be applied each time the computer starts. That's in Ubuntu.

http://groups.google.com/group/ilug-...973dc872366ff6

It would be interesting to see if the same fix works for you.

[Setlew]

That simple fix did the trick! Specifically, running sudo rmmod -f acer_wmi allowed me to see and connect to the local wireless network temporarily, while running echo "blacklist acer_wmi" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf as root made the changes permanent. It seems that the acer module was blocking access to the wireless module, as I'd speculated earlier.

Now I have to figure out how to make it autoconnect, and to fix the graphics configuration so's I'm not stuck in 1024x768; but this is a great step forward. Thanks very much for the link, and all of the suggestions!

[bbfuller]

Hello Setlew

I'm really pleased that worked.

As the fix seems to be specific to your particular model of laptop, it might be nice to modify the title of the thread so that it includes that information.

It might make it easier for other sufferers to find.

Enjoy the wireless.

[Setlew]

OK, I feel stupid, but after doing some Googling and searching through the forum's FAQ, I can't figure out how to edit the thread title. How do I do this?

Thanks.

[bbfuller]

Hello Setlew

I believe you need to send a personal message to either a moderator or an administrator.