Thinkpads Forum

Hey guys,
I am aware there are some issues with some wireless cards not working properly in 9.04 but haven't really seen a fix for mine specifically.
I have a z60t with the regular "ThinkPad 802.11a/b/g, 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter". I have Ubuntu and Windows 7 on it. I love Ubuntu but the wireless card is a nightmare on it. The card was detected form the get go, however it takes a long time to connect to my network (about 2 minutes at least), and once it does it only lasts about 10 minutes before it drops and tries to re-connect again (again taking a very long time to connect). Also it does not seem to connect automatically when i turn on the laptop, i always have to to to the wireless icon and pick my network so It'll start connecting...
The wireless card works great under Windows, strong signal, never drops....this only happens in Ubuntu. Anyone with this same card hanve issues and has resolved them?
Thanks for any help!!

Have you tried NDISWrapper so you can use the Windows driver?

I'm pretty much a noob at Linux so I had not heard about this before, just googled it and looks like it might help! Thanks for the info!

You are probably using the Atheros open source drivers(which have been updated heavily in recent updates), you can either install a newer kernel or build the drivers for your kernel, or install the madwifi drivers. You do not need to install ndiswrapper as mentioned above.

Thanks for the help! I just installed the madwifi drivers, we'll see how it behaves! If not I'll try the remaining suggestions..

Louis wrote:Thanks for the help! I just installed the madwifi drivers, we'll see how it behaves! If not I'll try the remaining suggestions..

Keep us updated

I tried the madwifi drivers and seems much better! It still wont connect automatically, and takes a little to connect once i manually do it, but at least its not dropping! thanx!

Louis wrote:I tried the madwifi drivers and seems much better! It still wont connect automatically, and takes a little to connect once i manually do it, but at least its not dropping! thanx!

Alright, if you can post the output from LSPCI, using a newer kernel(2.6.30) there have been lots of improvements to the wireless code, and you can see if there were issues with your current card that were fixed and whatnot.

This is what i got from lspci. I'm still a noob so most of this is greek to me..

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 11)
13:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
14:00.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b3)
14:00.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C552 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 08)
14:00.2 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 17)



Luckily seems to be working good, just a bit annoying that it wont auto connect at bootup, is there a setting that needs to
be changed for that or should it do it automatically? Again I'll take it as is, even if i have to manually connect all the time, at least it's staying connected whereas before it kept dropping...so could be worse!
Thanks again!

Louis wrote:This is what i got from lspci. I'm still a noob so most of this is greek to me..

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 11)
13:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
14:00.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b3)
14:00.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C552 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 08)
14:00.2 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 17)



Luckily seems to be working good, just a bit annoying that it wont auto connect at bootup, is there a setting that needs to
be changed for that or should it do it automatically? Again I'll take it as is, even if i have to manually connect all the time, at least it's staying connected whereas before it kept dropping...so could be worse!
Thanks again!

13:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01) so the AR5212 is the wireless chipset you have, looks like Madwifi is the best choice

great! thanks for the help!!!
I'm loving Ubuntu, i got it on both my laptop and my desktop and dont miss MS at all....