Installing New WiFi Card

[SyntheticShield]

I have two laptops that came with Broadcom WiFi Cards. After having some issues with them, particularly with accessing public WiFi I decided to ditch them and bought Intel Centrino 6200 cards. I got them in today and installed them. Now my issue is how do I get the drivers installed. My third laptop came with an Intel WiFi card in it and Linux Mint picked it up and installed the driver for it. But Im not sure how to get Linux to recognize there is a new WLAN card installed on the other two and install the driver for it. Anyone have any suggestions?

[SyntheticShield]

Just in case it is needed this is the output of lspci -v with regards to my ethernet and wifi

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09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 13)
        Subsystem: Dell Device 02aa
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 44
        Memory at f68fc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        I/O ports at de00 [size=256]
        Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [5c] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [c0] Express Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [130] Device Serial Number ff-64-25-00-a1-a5-74-ff
        Kernel driver in use: sky2
        Kernel modules: sky2

0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6200 (rev 09)
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6200 2x2 AGN
        Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 17
        Memory at f69fe000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
        Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [e0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number 00-15-00-ff-ff-58-13-88
        Kernel modules: iwlagn

[SyntheticShield]

Okay, well I've been continuing to try and figure this out and Im coming up empty. Apparently the Intel drivers/firmware is part of the current linux kernel and I have also confirmed that the firmware is where it should be (/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-6000-4.ucode). But for whatever reason, the interface is not showing. When I try and see the interfaces with either ifconfig or iwconfig no WiFi interfaces show, but the Intel WLAN card shows up on the pci report as posted above.

Im out of ideas. Ive tried to do the research and google but Im not coming up with anything or Im looking for the wrong thing. So if anyone could offer any assistance I would greatly appreciate it. What Ive seen is that Linux should have seen the new card and picked it up automatically but thats just not happening.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[MistrzPoiu]

I have the same problem with my card.
After installing new driver from windows and then removing them my WIFI interface is not showing.

I find this command to write in terminal

sudo modprobe iwl4965

After this command the Wifi interface starts, but after reset a need to write this in terminal again.

Sorry for my poor english, and also I don`t know anything about Linux.

[SyntheticShield]

I have the same problem with my card.
After installing new driver from windows and then removing them my WIFI interface is not showing.

I find this command to write in terminal

sudo modprobe iwl4965

After this command the Wifi interface starts, but after reset a need to write this in terminal again.

Sorry for my poor english, and also I don`t know anything about Linux.

I gave that a shot, but it didnt do anything for me.

[SyntheticShield]

I also did a dmesg just to make sure everything is showing up where it should and so far there have been no indications that this thing should have any issues working:

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Dell1545 ~ # dmesg | grep -i Intel
[    0.004289] Performance Events: PEBS fmt0+, Core2 events, Intel PMU driver.
[    0.062927] CPU0: Intel Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU       T4400  @ 2.20GHz stepping 0a
[    0.667437] intel_idle: MWAIT substates: 0x2220
[    0.667439] intel_idle: does not run on family 6 model 23
[    1.184030] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: Intel GM45 Chipset
[    1.224093] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: detected 32764K stolen memory
[    1.252282] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: AGP aperture is 256M @ 0xe0000000
[    4.173689] fb0: inteldrmfb frame buffer device
[   18.537166] iwlagn: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, in-tree:
[   18.537170] iwlagn: Copyright(c) 2003-2010 Intel Corporation
[   18.537362] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N 6200 AGN, REV=0x74
[   18.694527] HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 21
[   18.694605] HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: irq 47 for MSI/MSI-X
[   18.694639] HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   18.773847] input: HDA Intel Mic at Ext Right Jack as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input9
[   18.773936] input: HDA Intel HP Out at Ext Right Jack as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input10

I will also add, that I installed this very same card on both my Dell 1545 and my Dell 11z, both have Linux mint 10 KDE on them. The set up is working on the 11z without issue. I didnt do anything special there on the 11z. In fact the only thing I can think of that was done differently is that I also installed the driver for my Alfa Networks USB WiFi antenna, which is also working. So for grins and giggles I tried the Alfa Networks antenna on the 1545 and it works.

I should also mention that I am using wicd as my network manager rather than the default manager. So I have to go into wicd and change it from monitoring wlan0 to wlan1 and then everything is fine, I can use the usb WiFi antenna, just can use the new internal WiFi card.

[AlbertP]

Use dmesg | grep iwlagn and look if you get more info.

[z06gal]

I had to upgrade to the 2.6.38 kernel for it to pick mine up. I also ran the driver update commands posted in this thread by Patches:


http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1656556


I don't know what os you are running so if not maverick, you'll need to change that to lucid or whatever. You may try this before you upgrade kernels to see if it works.


Robin

[riclin54]

Just thought you should know Intel's wifi cards require non-free firmware. You may run into issues with it. They are not as desirable and certainly don't work with all distributions. You really want an Atheros 802.11N card. You can find these pretty easily or get one from http://www.thinkpenguin.com/ You just need a Mini PCIe card with an Atheros 802.11N chipset.

[AlbertP]

Just install linux-firmware-nonfree and Intel wifi works on Mint and Ubuntu (the 2100 to 4965 cards work without this firmware). On Debian and LMDE it's firmware-iwlwifi.

By the way, a Broadcom 43224 or 43225 works without any driver problems from Mint 11 on.

The best choice for Linux is, I think, a second-hand Intel 3945/4965 card. Those cards don't require non-free firmware.