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Wifi goes inactive on Mint 14 on Dell e6410

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:24 pm
by jtoupin
Hello,
I was running Ubuntu 12.04 for a while on my Dell e6410 but decided to switch to Linux Mint 14 Cinnamon. The problem I have is that every couple of hours, the wireless will stop working. The wifi icon in the taskbar still shows connected but I cannot ping my gateway (wireless router). If I disable and re-enable wireless using the taskbar icon, it comes back.

Here is the output of mintwifi:

Code: Select all

-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
  -- Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)
      ==> PCI ID = 14e4:4727 (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"jpan"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:23:69:F9:7A:FA   
          Bit Rate=65 Mb/s   Tx-Power=19 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=48/70  Signal level=-62 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:23  Invalid misc:59   Missed beacon:0

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 5c:26:0a:3f:5e:87  
          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:20 Memory:f6900000-f6920000 

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:84486 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:84486 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:7565569 (7.5 MB)  TX bytes:7565569 (7.5 MB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 68:a3:c4:0f:f2:eb  
          inet addr:192.168.0.13  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::6aa3:c4ff:fe0f:f2eb/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2060260 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1434078 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:2710181850 (2.7 GB)  TX bytes:471465153 (471.4 MB)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d, use the service(8)
utility, e.g. service smbd reload

Since the script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an
Upstart job, you may also use the reload(8) utility, e.g. reload smbd
RTNETLINK answers: File exists
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
Server:		192.168.0.2
Address:	192.168.0.2#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	google.com
Address: 74.125.228.71
Name:	google.com
Address: 74.125.228.78
Name:	google.com
Address: 74.125.228.70
Name:	google.com
Address: 74.125.228.68
Name:	google.com
Address: 74.125.228.65
Name:	google.com
Address: 74.125.228.73
Name:	google.com
Address: 74.125.228.66
Name:	google.com
Address: 74.125.228.69
Name:	google.com
Address: 74.125.228.67
Name:	google.com
Address: 74.125.228.72
Name:	google.com
Address: 74.125.228.64
Thanks!

Re: Wifi goes inactive on Mint 14 on Dell e6410

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:51 am
by skrebel33
I have the same issue. Is your signal also weak? I'm one room away from my wireless router and the signal is only at 70%.




Skrebel33

Re: Wifi goes inactive on Mint 14 on Dell e6410

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:32 am
by jtoupin
The AP is in my basement and my PC on the second floor so I get 70% or so which is normal. It works fine under Windows or Unbuntu 12.04.

I did some more research and it looks like the issue is upstream in the kernel. It is a bug that nobody cares about because it only happens with a combination or certain wireless routers and network adapters. Ubuntu 12.10 is also affected.

I have uninstalled Mint 14 and installed Mint 13 instead and everything works fine.