[ltp] Thinkpad X61s iwlwifi 4965 LED

[John Jason Jordan]

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 21:28:31 +0100
Jose Celestino <japc@co.sapo.pt> dijo:

> > That works! I have had this T61 for about a year and a half, always
> > Ubuntu x86_64, and I have never seen the wireless LED lit up. Finally!
> > Thanks! Now I have a couple additional questions:
> > 
> > 1) I plan to do apt-get dist-upgrade when Hardy is final. Hardy uses a
> > later kernel than my Gutsy 2.6.22-14-generic kernel. Will what I just
> > did mess up the upgrade?

> Yes. You'll have to redo all of the above. If the hardy kernel doesn't
> already include these.

> > 2) The light is working now, but I note that Network Manager (System >
> > Administration > Network) still doesn't see available wireless
> > networks. I also have wifi-radar and it sees all available networks
> > just fine. Do I assume correctly that this is a bug in the Network
> > Manager GUI, unrelated to the driver? And did I just install the latest
> > driver?

> Never noticed a similar behaviour. But then I only have the thinkpad for
> 3 weeks. Does iwlist wlan0 scan show all the networks?

No. After I sent the above I went to the university. I spent an hour trying to get the wireless working, and I can't connect at all. Previously I could connect, but got random disconnects, and the light was not on. Now the light is on but I can't connect at all. Strangely, wifi-radar sees all the available wireless networks, but iwlist does not. Nor does Ubuntu Network Manager or kwifimanager. Here is some command line output (at the library at the university, connected to university network via ethernet wall jack):

jjj@Devil7:~$ ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1A:6B:D0:97:F9  
          inet addr:131.252.183.83  Bcast:131.252.183.255  Mask:255.255.252.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21a:6bff:fed0:97f9/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1647 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:827 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:686845 (670.7 KB)  TX bytes:100148 (97.8 KB)
          Base address:0x1840 Memory:fe200000-fe220000 

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:236 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:236 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:75537 (73.7 KB)  TX bytes:75537 (73.7 KB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:13:E8:B7:47:59  
          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)

wmaster0  Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-13-E8-B7-47-59-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING 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)

jjj@Devil7:~$ iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0     No scan results

I should add that I have a Netgear WG511T that uses the Atheros chip. I had been using it and had the 4965agn turned off in the BIOS. But now I cannot get connected with the WG511T either. I have no wireless at all.

Something else that might shed light on the problem is the following (booted with the 4965 active in the BIOS and the WG511T not in the slot):

jjj@Devil7:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
[sudo] password for jjj:
Reconfiguring network interfaces...wlan1: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
Error for wireless request "Set ESSID" (8B1A) :
    SET failed on device wlan1 ; No such device.
There is already a pid file /var/run/dhclient.wlan1.pid with pid 1
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.5
Copyright 2004-2006 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/
wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
SIOCSIFADDR: No such device
wlan1: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
wlan1: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
Bind socket to interface: No such device
Failed to bring up wlan1.
done.

I don't understand the above. Wlan1 does not exist. When I ran that command there was a wlan0, but the command did not see it. 

At this point I think I'd like to undo what I did shen I installed the latest drivers. At least with the old setup I could connect. The light is nice, but useless if the wireless doesn't work at all.