Linux Mint Forums

Hi all,

I've been using mint on my laptop for more than a year now, but a few months ago my wireless completely stopped working. It would get through the authentication and and hang while obtaining IP address. I ended up taking out NM and installing wicd, which I found out crashes my laptop after it hogs up all the memory. This was not an unheard-of problem, and the solution was to install wicd-curses, which I did. Curses will open, but for a while wouldn't connect, hanging while obtaining IP address like NM. Then I gave up for a while and just used a wired connection. But recently, I tried connecting again and it did, but the computer crashed to a bunch of text after maybe 30 seconds. It does this every time now. I don't understand what any of the crash text means, but the word 'panic' is used. A little more info: I have always been able to connect to unsecured wifi connections, but the computer would always crash after a few minutes similarly to what it does now.

I'm using a Toshiba Satellite C655-S5068, which has an Atheros card in it. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling ath9k, and various other things I've found in forums, but nothing's worked.

Any help or suggestions would be awesome.

Thanks.

Here's a pic I took of the error: http://imgur.com/z9vsmfv

EDIT:

Mintwifi output

-------------------------
* 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.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=15 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:on

eth0 no wireless extensions.

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:26:6c:5c:cb:e8
inet addr:192.168.1.103 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::226:6cff:fe5c:cbe8/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:210260 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:112593 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:290875273 (290.8 MB) TX bytes:12128707 (12.1 MB)
Interrupt:45

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:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:5905 (5.9 KB) TX bytes:5905 (5.9 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:26:b6:ee:85:fe
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)

-------------------------
* 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: 75.75.75.75
Address: 75.75.75.75#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.110
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.101
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.100
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.105
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.102
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.104
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.96
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.103
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.99
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.98
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.97

I finally checked in the ath9k bugs list and saw that there were some others having this problem. The bug was fixed in a recent push. Upgrading to Nadia got me to a working version. All is well.