Connection troubles with Atheros AR5BMB5

[Tristan Young]

Wireless networking was working flawlessly in Kubuntu 10.04 and 10.10.

After wiping out the system and installing Kubuntu 11.04, I noticed an odd wireless network problem.

The computer cannot see or connect to any wireless networks until it gets close enough to one of my routers.

I suspect the signal strength has to be super-high.

I've tried walking the laptop towards the router, and once I get within 12ft of the router, the laptop is happily seeing about a dozen networks, including both of mine.

I've tried walking the laptop towards the router, but from a different floor, and I get the same results (albeit I have to be much closer, and I suspect that's due to the signal strength.

Odd, eh?

Once connection has been established, it will happily stay that way all day until either I reboot/log out/suspend the computer, or disable the wireless/wired networking.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[el_koraco]

Re: Connection troubles with Atheros AR5BMB5

AFAIK, it's down to the new kernel and issues with ath9. Check on whether or not you have it.

lspci -k

and look under network.

Then you might wanna check out http://www.jlacroix.me/?p=1999

"Even with Kubuntu being as great as it is, I have a few complaints. The first is the wireless speed. With my Atheros card, it’s so slow it can take up to five minutes for a page to load, if it loads at all. However, this is not a Kubuntu problem, it’s a bug with the 2.6.38 Linux kernel and has already been reported, and is being worked on. It’s easily fixed by adding “options ath9k nohwcrypt=1″ to the /etc/modprobe.d/ath9k.conf file (that file didn’t already exist on my system, so I had to create it) and then after a reboot, it was fine. I found that solution here (in post #3). I’m not sure what all that effects, but it does make things work. Since this bug isn’t Kubuntu’s fault, I won’t hold it against the score, but it was worth mentioning."

There is also another thread going on on the ubuntuforums - here

You guys need to check for open bugs and start pestering the devs. i have no idea how I was able to escape such issues, seeing as I also use the ath9 driver.

[Tristan Young]

Re: Connection troubles with Atheros AR5BMB5

I checked it out, and I'm using ath5k.

I thought it might be a kernel issue, and I found a more recent RC version, but it didn't fix the issue.

I'm a little tired to look into this more right now. I'll take another crack at things with a new day.

At least I can access the net, so long as I approach my wireless routers with laptop in tow.

Another weird thing, probably unrelated, and best suited for a different forum, but... the power manager reports my battery to be 47% full, and there might be a problem with it - after I log in. The battery actually reports 97%. I used the laptop on battery for over an hour, and the battery graph didn't change.

I may just go back to 10.10 - it worked flawlessly (except kwallet).

Thank you for answering. I do intend to investigate this further.

[perspectoff]

Re: Connection troubles with Atheros AR5BMB5

I've never gotten Network Manager to work reliably (and the problem persists into Natty).

I installed Wicd-kde (which is now integrated into System Settings once it is installed) and removed Network Manager (3 modules, including nm-framework).

I've never had problems with Wicd.

Then I use Kvpnc if I need to make VPN connections.

Some day the Kubuntu MOTU will make Wicd the default. It's been 3 versions (at least) that this problem has persisted.

[Tristan Young]

Re: Connection troubles with Atheros AR5BMB5

Thanks for letting me know about WiCD. I've been reading lots of good things about it (mainly that it works), which begs the question: why are they still shipping that network-manager piece of crap?

I have to admit, I've seen some very stupid bugs with network-manager over the years. I believe I experienced no problems with it for 10.04 and 10.10.

Time to go grab my laptop and give WiCD a spin.

Thanks!

[Tristan Young]

Re: Connection troubles with Atheros AR5BMB5

Thank you everyone for the advice.

Sadly, WiCD didn't help.

First, I was able to duplicate the problem using WiCD, where no wireless networks are shown until I get sufficiently close to one of any number of wireless routers, then all the wireless networks within range appear.

Second, WiCD was never able to connect to either of my wireless networks successfully. It kept reporting "bad password", which couldn't be further from the truth. I must have checked 10x to be sure.

Third, I lost the ability to connect all together to any sort of network, wired or wireless, using network manager. Even when my wireless networks are visible with near-100% signals, no connection was possible.

During the course of testing, I uninstalled the network manager packages, just in case there was coexistence issues. That didn't work out so well.

After downloading all the various networking packages manually and re-installing them, it still wouldn't connect.

So I ended up wiping the laptop clean again and re-installing Kubuntu 11.04 again. Most disappointing.

Perhaps it's time to switch back to 10.10, or replace this laptop with a new one running Windows 7. I need to think long and hard which direction I want to go in. Moving forward with Kubuntu has me running around the house trying to get a strong signal - at this point in time, networking should just work.