[SOLVED]HP Pavilion and Realtek Connection Issues[SOLVED]

[Mr_Reed]

Greetings forum members. Hoping to get some assistance on this strange wifi issue. Here I have HP Pavilion g6 laptop with the RTL8188CE chip and it's not connecting to my wifi. I suspect there is an issue with the power management. Interestingly enough, the laptop worked at the library at my university, but won't connect at home. My other devices have no issues with connecting, but they use Broadcom chips.

Network: Card-1: Realtek RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter driver: rtl8192ce
Power Management is ON
There are no soft blocks listed in rfkill list all

The laptop was free, but the battery is totally dead. I thought I would put life back in it with a fresh LM install.

[Mr_Reed]

I don't know how to shut the power management off through the terminal.

[majpooper]

Mr_Reed,

Maybe I can spare you some pain. I had the same issue but with a RTL8188EE. I could not find a documented solution for my exact chip but something very close that I adapted for RTL8188EE and it worked. Essentially I had to install an updated driver into the kernel. It may be worth a try - just replace RTL8188EE with RTL8188CE.
viewtopic.php?f=53&t=280501

[Mr_Reed]

I think I already have "CE" and not "EE"

As I said, it's weird that it works at school with no issues, but just won't connect to my home connection. It's too much trouble to change routers when all my other devices work fine. It seems I need to try the power management command in the terminal, but alas I can't find anything on 18.3 on the easy linux tips website.

[Pjotr]

Try this:

1. Disable power management for your wifi chipset:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... eless-card
(item 2.1, right column)

2. Install another driver:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... r-edition-
(item 7, right column)

[majpooper]

I think I already have "CE" and not "EE"

Sorry - I was not clear - If you go to the thread I link in the post you will see some terminal input that probably will solve your problem as it installs an updated driver in the kernel - evidently that fixes a bug in several realtec nic drivers - for both CE (you have) and EE (I have) and several others. However what I meant was since you already have CE and the input that I used was "ee" you should not simply cut&past what I used in the terminal - rather you should replace "ee" with "ce" which is what you already have.

[Mr_Reed]

Try this:

1. Disable power management for your wifi chipset:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... eless-card
(item 2.1, right column)

When I attempted this, I get an error saying something like "xed cannot handle admin locations"

[Pjotr]

Post the output of:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

[Mr_Reed]

reed@Mikaela-PC ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System: Host: Mikaela-PC Kernel: 4.15.0-29-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 (Gtk 2.24.28) Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia
Machine: System: Hewlett-Packard (portable) product: HP Pavilion g6 Notebook PC v: 0691120000204610000620100
Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 1695 v: KBC Version 15.1F Bios: Hewlett-Packard v: F.37 date: 01/16/2013
CPU: Dual core Intel Core i3-2330M (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 8780
clock speeds: max: 2200 MHz 1: 2046 MHz 2: 826 MHz 3: 827 MHz 4: 814 MHz
Graphics: Card: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1366x768@60.04hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Sandybridge Mobile GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.0.7 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio Controller
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-29-generic
Network: Card-1: Realtek RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter driver: rtl8192ce port: 4000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
IF: wlo1 state: down mac: <filter>
Card-2: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller
driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 2000 bus-ID: 03:00.0
IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 640.1GB (1.7% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD6400BPVT size: 640.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 583G used: 6.2G (2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-2: swap-1 size: 4.24GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 39.0C mobo: 0.0C
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 189 Uptime: 1 min Memory: 325.0/3892.1MB Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35

[Pjotr]

18.3 Sylvia, which is the reason for the error.
Replace xed admin:///etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf by:

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gksudo xed /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf

[Mr_Reed]

I successfully turned off power management, but still no connnection

[Pjotr]

Did you install the other driver?

[Mr_Reed]

Did you install the other driver?

No because it appears to have a driver loaded, and it connects at my university with no problem. Do I need an updated driver?

[majpooper]

OK now I see that this is your driver rtl8192ce - I some how thought you had driver rtl8188ce - my bad - my card and driver are both the same (RTL8188EE/rtl8188ee) so I should have been more careful when I looked at your original post.

I researched this issue for days and found that there is a bug in the realtec drivers in the 4.15 kernel.
Although the fix I found was specifcally for a different driver (rtl8723de) it works for several drives - for example it worked for my driver rtl8188ee. It will most likely work for your drive as well - I pasted your driver in the terminal commands below.

Code: Select all

cd Desktop
git clone -b extended https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new.git
sudo dkms add ./rtlwifi_new
sudo dkms install rtlwifi-new/0.6
sudo cp -r rtlwifi_new/firmware/rtlwifi/ /lib/firmware/rtlwifi
echo "options rtl8192ce ant_sel=2" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8192ce.conf

[Mr_Reed]

The problem was with my router. Factory reset the router and the HP connects now. Yippee! Thanks!

Happily solved