Atheros QCA6174 Wifi not detected by Mint 18

[Drake Merwin]

Hi all,

I recently purchased a Lenovo ThinkPad E470 and dual booted Mint 18 with along with windows 10. I'm quite new to the linux OS so really don't know how things work. The problem is that Wifi does not appear under the Network connections at all, which I believe is caused by a missing driver - the device driver does not appear in the driver manager. Wifi works fine with windows 10, and Ethernet is working fine with both operating systems. Hardware specs here:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: ahmad-ThinkPad-E470 Kernel: 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.3.1)
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.0.6 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3)
           Distro: Linux Mint 18 Sarah
Machine:   System: LENOVO (portable) product: 20H1CTO1WW v: ThinkPad E470
           Mobo: LENOVO model: 20H1CTO1WW v: SDK0J40709 WIN
           Bios: LENOVO v: R0DET33W (1.09 ) date: 10/13/2016
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i7-7500U (-HT-MCP-) cache: 4096 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 11615
           clock speeds: max: 2701 MHz 1: 1100 MHz 2: 1300 MHz 3: 2701 MHz
           4: 600 MHz
Graphics:  Card-1: Intel Device 5916 bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Card-2: NVIDIA GM108M [GeForce 940MX] bus-ID: 01:00.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.3 drivers: fbdev,intel (unloaded: vesa)
           Resolution: 1920x1080@77.00hz
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.8, 256 bits)
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel Device 9d71 driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.4.0-21-generic
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: c000 bus-ID: 04:00.0
           IF: enp4s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
           driver: ath10k_pci bus-ID: 05:00.0
           IF: N/A state: N/A mac: N/A
           Card-3: Atheros usb-ID: 001-003
           IF: null-if-id state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 260.1GB (9.0% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: SanDisk_SD8TB8U2 size: 256.1GB
           ID-2: USB /dev/sdb model: Flash_Disk size: 4.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 95G used: 5.0G (6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 17.08GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda6
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 55.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 183 Uptime: 15 min Memory: 924.9/15950.4MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.3.1
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.421) inxi: 2.2.35 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, since I have no idea how to fix this.

[jimallyn]

You are not the first person to have problems with that wifi chip. There have been a number of posts on the forums about that. Check out some of these threads:

viewtopic.php?f=53&t=218281&start=20

viewtopic.php?f=53&t=223828&p=1179157#p1179130

viewtopic.php?t=215855

viewtopic.php?t=220938

viewtopic.php?t=224473

I wouldn't just try the first thing mentioned in the first thread. Several of them start out with "try this." "Didn't work? Try this." and so on. So read through them enough to figure out exactly what it is you really want to do. When you get it working, buy Jeremy B a beer.

[Minterator]

You are not the first person to have problems with that wifi chip. There have been a number of posts on the forums about that. Check out some of these threads:

viewtopic.php?f=53&t=218281&start=20

viewtopic.php?f=53&t=223828&p=1179157#p1179130

viewtopic.php?t=215855

viewtopic.php?t=220938

viewtopic.php?t=224473

I wouldn't just try the first thing mentioned in the first thread. Several of them start out with "try this." "Didn't work? Try this." and so on. So read through them enough to figure out exactly what it is you really want to do. When you get it working, buy Jeremy B a beer.

Yep, check here
viewtopic.php?f=53&t=218281

I just edited my original post, For solution scroll to page 2, read post dated Apr 13, 2016 7:58 am

[JeremyB]

Some changes to package linux-firmware has made this easier

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install linux-firmware

Then reboot and it should work unless rfkill list all shows it blocked

[roros]

Thanks, JeremyB your solution worked like a champ. I hope to one day understand what the meaning of what I typed in was, but for now, I'm happy that my wireless card is working. Again, thanks!!

[JeremyB]

Thanks, JeremyB your solution worked like a champ. I hope to one day understand what the meaning of what I typed in was, but for now, I'm happy that my wireless card is working. Again, thanks!!

The Linux Mint ISO doesn't have the updated linux-firmware package that provides support for some of the Atheros QCA series wifi cards and the simple command updates the linux-firmware version