My wireless keeps dropping!!

[yinyang37]

Hello all,

I have seen numerous posts on this topic, but no clear cut answer (at least to me). I am very very new to Linux and have zero knowledge , so please bear with me.

My wireless keeps dropping randomly. It can be within 10 minutes of loggin on, or an hour, almost always when idle, and often when the computer seems to be running "busy". I set the power to never suspend, but that hasn't helped. Any suggestions?

I also downloaded Wicd Network Manager which hasn't seemed to make any difference. And since I don't know how to disable the original network manager, both are active in my upper toolbar. Once I am disconnected during a session, it seems the ONLY way to reconnect is to completely restart my computer. Otherwise I get a "bad password" error, even with the correctly stored passwords used to log me in originally.

Please help! This could be a Linux dealbreaker !!

I'm on Mint 12 with an old Dell Latitude D610 Laptop. Any other info you need I will gladly provide, please keep in mind, you may have to help with instructions on how to get such info.

Thanks in advance!!

[vanDoom]

I don't have a definitive answer, but I can certainly empathize. Being a new user, these will be of good use

http://tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html
http://tldp.org/LDP/GNU-Linux-Tools-Sum ... index.html

Are you able to open a terminal? Go ahead and try:

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cd .gnome2/keyrings
sudo rm -rf login.keyring user.keyring
sudo reboot

This will delete the password access requirement for your wireless (from your system, not the wireless security ); when you reboot it will ask you to re-enter them, but leave them blank! Even when asks if you are sure, say yes. See how that works out for you.

[AlbertP]

I don't think the removal of the password is really helpful. This sounds more like a driver issue.

Please open a terminal, run this command and paste the output:

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inxi -N

Edit: sorry, that was the wrong command... inxi -Gx of course tells about graphics instead of network.

[yinyang37]

Thanks so much for both prompt replies. Here's the terminal output:

diana@diana-Latitude-D610 ~ $ inxi -Gx
Graphics: Card: ATI M22 [Mobility Radeon X300] bus-ID: 01:00.0
X.Org 1.10.4 drivers ati,radeon unloaded: fbdev,vesa Resolution 1024x768@60.0hz
GLX Renderer Gallium 0.4 on ATI RV370 GLX Version 2.1 Mesa 7.11 Direct Rendering Yes
diana@diana-Latitude-D610 ~ $

[vanDoom]

It will be useful to know what kind of wireless card you have, so please post the output from

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sudo modprobe -l | grep ipw

Can you also take a screenshot if the 'bad password' comes up again? Meanwhile, instead of restarting, why don't you try

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sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

to restart the wifi.

AlbertP, are you assuming a timing issue, leading you to suspect drivers? The 'bad password' information seems more like a failure to renew a DHCP lease.

[yinyang37]

It will be useful to know what kind of wireless card you have, so please post the output from

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sudo modprobe -l | grep ipw

Here's the output:
diana@diana-Latitude-D610 ~ $ sudo modprobe -l | grep ipw
[sudo] password for diana:
kernel/drivers/tty/ipwireless/ipwireless.ko
kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ipw2x00/ipw2100.ko
kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ipw2x00/ipw2200.ko
kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ipw2x00/libipw.ko
kernel/drivers/usb/serial/ipw.ko
diana@diana-Latitude-D610 ~ $

I will try & take a screenshot of "bad password", and then try your command suggestion rather than restart when wifi drops. Thanks again for your help!

[AlbertP]

Oops, sorry, I posted a wrong command. Instead of inxi -Gx which gave graphics data, I meant:

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inxi -N

[yinyang37]

Oops, sorry, I posted a wrong command. Instead of inxi -Gx which gave graphics data, I meant:

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inxi -N

no problem, here ya go:

diana@diana-Latitude-D610 ~ $ inxi -N
Network: Card-1 Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express driver tg3
Card-2 Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG [Calexico2] Network Connection driver ipw2200
diana@diana-Latitude-D610 ~ $

[vanDoom]

I think the answer lies here:

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/har ... iwi.4.html

however I'm on Mint 12 and it seems my loader.conf and kernel .config are not where I'd expect ...I'll keep looking though

[yinyang37]

ok, update~

I didn't try that last bit of info yet because as Murphy's Law would have it, my wireless was doing pretty well today, and I thought maybe somehow by typing those commands it fixed itself, but no such luck. It just went out again. But here are the screen shots as requested.

You will notice first that my wireless was "unavailable" I had to turn it off and then on again in order for it to find my router, but it wouldn't connect, then the password error messages. I tried with both network managers.

I also tried the commands to get back online from the terminal, but no luck there either. Had to reboot. Screenshot attached.

Thanks again to everyone for their help!

[yinyang37]

It only let me post 3 attachments, here's the last one

[chipbuster]

whoa, you don't have a wlan0 interface o.0

Not neccesarily bad, but certainly unusual. Can you post the output of

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sudo ifconfig
sudo iwconfig

for us? That'll help figure out what interfaces you do have available to you.

[AlbertP]

It happens sometimes that the wifi interface is not named wlan0 but wlan2 or eth1. This depends on the wifi driver used, IIRC ipw2200 uses eth names instead of wlan0 (I'm having an old laptop which has a 2200 card, seem to recall that eth1 was used for wifi on that computer).

[yinyang37]

wow, you guys are great...I go to sleep for a few hours, and wake up to more help! Thank you!!

screenshot attached

[AlbertP]

These outputs look like you're just connected to the network named AIW52. Intel wifi cards generally work well with Mint, especially the older generations; I've never seen any complaint about the 2915 card.

[yinyang37]

These outputs look like you're just connected to the network named AIW52. Intel wifi cards generally work well with Mint, especially the older generations; I've never seen any complaint about the 2915 card.

Thanks AlbertP,

Yes I am on AIW52 now, but I've been on other newtworks with the same dropping issue. The Intel wifi card 2915 you mentioned, I assume that is NOT what I have, but one that you are recommending? I'm sorry, the outputs are greek to me

[AlbertP]

I didn't recommend anything. Your card is listed as an Intel 2915 in the inxi -N output you gave.

[yinyang37]

I'm sorry AlbertP, I misunderstood. So if my card should be ok, any other suggestions? I really appreciate everyone's input and patience with my attempts to learn.

[vanDoom]

How far did you get with http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/har ... iwi.4.html ?

[AlbertP]

iwi is a driver for BSD & Solaris, instead of Linux. It won't help you much. Linux's ipw2200 should just work here. This is really the first time I see somebody having connection problems with Intel 2xxx.