Wireless connection not staying connected

[Oolon Colluphid]

Hi folks

So, I've got my Dad one of these, and due to the problem I described here I'm running Katya as per here.

On installation, the wireless thingummy detected his router instantly. It knows it's there. It just refuses to stay connected.

Sometimes it disconnects -- and reconnects -- automatically. More often, the box that asks for the WEP code comes up and needs clicking on. It can and does connect successfully... just not for long, and it spends far more time disconnected than not.

And no, it's nothing to do with the router or its signal, because both his (sadly, Vista) laptop and my own mobile happily maintain a solid connection, at the same time and from the same place in the building as the new, wirelessly inconvenienced machine.

Ideas please?

Cheers, Simon

[remoulder]

Please provide the information as requested in http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=1085

[Oolon Colluphid]

Hi remoulder

Yes, sorry, I posted the above from work. Now I'm home...


-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
-- Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
==> PCI ID = 168c:002b (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"ThomsonBA5FE8"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:1F:9F:D3:A8:1F
Bit Rate=2 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:D149-39D3-81
Power Management:off
Link Quality=19/70 Signal level=-91 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:9 Invalid misc:36 Missed beacon:0

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 50:e5:49:d3:0e:86
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:40 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:44 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:44 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:2880 (2.8 KB) TX bytes:2880 (2.8 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr f8:d1:11:61:1d:51
inet addr:192.168.1.66 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::fad1:11ff:fe61:1d51/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2222 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1965 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2587262 (2.5 MB) TX bytes:289769 (289.7 KB)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
Server: 192.168.1.254
Address: 192.168.1.254#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: google.com
Address: 173.194.41.67
Name: google.com
Address: 173.194.41.68
Name: google.com
Address: 173.194.41.69
Name: google.com
Address: 173.194.41.70
Name: google.com
Address: 173.194.41.71
Name: google.com
Address: 173.194.41.72
Name: google.com
Address: 173.194.41.73
Name: google.com
Address: 173.194.41.78
Name: google.com
Address: 173.194.41.64
Name: google.com
Address: 173.194.41.65
Name: google.com
Address: 173.194.41.66


Hope that makes sense to someone!

[remoulder]

Can you also provide the output in a terminal of lsmod

[AlbertP]

Please run this in terminal:

Code: Select all

sudo sh -c 'echo "options ath9k nohwcrypt" > /etc/modprobe.d/custom-wireless.conf'

This command fixes most problems with Atheros 928x series.

[Oolon Colluphid]

Hmmm...

tom@tom-GA-A55M-S2V ~ $ sudo sh -c 'echo "options ath9k nohwcrypt" > /etc/modprobe.d/custom-wireless.conf'
[sudo] password for tom: [snip]

tom@tom-GA-A55M-S2V ~ $ sudo sh -c 'echo "options ath9k nohwcrypt" > /etc/modprobe.d/custom-wireless.conf'
tom@tom-GA-A55M-S2V ~ $ sudo sh -c 'echo "options ath9k nohwcrypt" > /etc/modprobe.d/custom-wireless.conf
> sudo sh -c 'echo "options ath9k nohwcrypt" > /etc/modprobe.d/custom-wireless.conf'
> lsmod
>
>
>
>
>

No idea what that lot is about, but it doesn't appear to have done much...

[AlbertP]

You don't see any output when running it sudo sh -c "echo etc., that's not a problem.

[Oolon Colluphid]

The issue has been resolved, by the simple expedient of scrapping Mint and reinstalling Windows XP. Hey ho.

[AlbertP]

I won't call it a fix, but if you're fine with Windows then please edit the first post and add [solved] to the title.
It's true that some computers/hardware don't work very well with Linux because manufacturers do not support Linux as much as we'd like to see. Atheros is usually doing it very well, however.

[Oolon Colluphid]

Yeah, it's no fix at all, but to be honest I was being a bit ambitious putting a different operating system on my Dad's machine anyway -- he's 85. He said he was alright with Mint and LibreOffice, from what he saw of it... but was clearly relieved when things returned to the familiar format.

As to whether this is solved, well it is for me in particular, but I'm not sure how useful what we've got so far would be for anyone else...?

Simon