[SOLVED] Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 Troubles

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

I tried adding wlan0 to the default runlevel, with no effect.

Any other ideas? Is there any way I could set the initialization to verbose so that it would give me more feedback on where it's getting stuck? Another idea: When I boot off a live CD it detects wlan0, even though it doesn't have the microcode to run the card. Could I compare with the configuration files to get ideas about what I might be missing?

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

The really weird thing is, if I do a google search on "bringing up interface wlan0" there are lots of gentoo related hits, but none of them describe their machine getting frozen at this step (as mine does). They all seem to get an error messaged like "net.wlan0 failed to start".

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

One more thing before I get back to the real world, I thought to check my kernel log for references to wlan0 (after, of course, I booted the computer off a kernel that didn't have the iwlwifi driver and so wouldn't get hung up on the wlan0). There were a few references, specifically the following line appeared on many different dates:

Loading kernel module for a network device with CAP_SYS_MODULE (deprecated). Use CAP_NET_ADMIN and alias netdev-wlan0 instead.

The last time this line occures is June 22, so I'm guessing that this is back when I was playing around with compiling the driver as a module versus compiling it into my kernel (as it is now). But, could this be a clue to what's wrong?

Tolstoi · l33t Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 678

Are you using the genkernel method or are you building the kernel yourself from scratch?

The computer shouldn't freeze because of the network - it would boot normally and you just wouldn't be able to connect. Verbose output should be there unless you are using fbsplash (fbcondecor) and set the splash to silent in the grub kernel line. But you would know that because you have to do it yourself.
If that's not the case change the /etc/inittab line from:

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

I'm building my kernel from scratch. I've also never used a boot splash. Perhaps thi s is as verbose as it gets?

I just checked, and my kernel is linked properly. Also, I double my kernel settings against http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Wireless/Configuration#Networking_section, and it all checks out. Are there any other how-to sites you'd recommend checking against?

Tolstoi · l33t Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 678

Try this one: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Iwlwifi

But stick to the built-in option and not modules. Curiously the German wiki doesn't mention modules.

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

Thanks, I that one is more specific. The only thing I had missed was 'RF switch subsystem support ', which I've now enabled. Still, I get stuck at boot when wlan0 starts.

Tolstoi · l33t Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 678

I'm sorry but I've run out of ideas at the moment.

What I don't really understand is, does your pc hang or freeze while it boots or does it simply not start the network services. I just can't get what you mean when you say your machine gets "stuck at boot".

If your machine really gets stuck I really don't think it's a network problem, but something else. Did you solve the problem with the boot messages?

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

When it's going through the boot up sequence it gets to the step where it prints the message "bringing up interface wlan0", and then it stops. The text printed to the screen remains there, but there is no further action. It never completes the boot up sequence; I never get a login prompt. Because I can't login and do additional diagnostics, it's really hard to say what's going on. That's mostly why I was interested in the idea that there might be a more verbose setting - to try to figure out what's going on with "bringing up interface wlan0" while that line is printed to the screen and nothing else is happening.

Here's one possible idea: I've created a new live CD from an image that I just got from gentoo.org. I'm going to boot my machine off it and see if it detects and "brings up" wlan0. The old live CD, the one that I used to setup gentoo on my machine, didn't have the right firmware, but perhaps that's been added to new copies of the live CD image. With any luck the machine will be able to boot off that, and I can get a fix on what a working configuration looks like.

Tolstoi · l33t Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 678

Well that sounds complicated. There is still Systemrescuecd around with which you can chroot into your system. I still can't imagine that your boot process hangs because of the network. After a time out it should boot normally without network. There must be something else going on I believe.

Tolstoi · l33t Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 678

Just a few questions I had over the weekend:
Do you have dhcp or dhcpcd installed?
Do you need WPA encryption for your router?

If you need wpa you should install wpa_supplicant and configure it to your needs to have the capability to connect to your router with WPA.

dewke · Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 2:58 pm Post subject:

Wow, I just read through this. I have the same card in my laptop and it works with no issues. The only difference is I use wicd.

Out of curiosity, if you don't bring up the wlan0 interface at boot, can you bring it up without dhcp and have it capture other wifi traffic? It might be you have rf-kill set in which case it won't come up at all.
_________________
Oderint dum metuant
-Caligula

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

Tolstoi: I'm using dhcpcd. My router (at home) is unencrypted. I unmerged wpa_supplicant a while back in case it was somehow conflicted with wireless tools. My plan was to switch back to wpa_supplicant once I've gotten the bugs work out of the wireless card, but, for now, it seemed best to keep my setup as simple as possible.

dewke: I'm not sure how to not bring up dhcp at boot. Even when I removed it from the default runlevel, it still comes up. When I run 'rc-status', dhcpcd appears under "Dynamic Runlevel: needed". When I comment out the hotplug line in my rc.conf file to bring up wlan0, I get stuck at "Starting DHCP Client Daemon' - that is, the machine prints this line during the bootup process and nothing thereafter, and never fully boots up. Here's a question: What is the difference between dhcp and dhcpcd?

And, a report on my Live CD experiment: It didn't get very far, as the Live CD didn't have the firmware microcode needed to run the wireless card. Is there a way of installing that firmware on the Live CD? The only kind of Live CD I've made so far is just by downloading the image file.

Also, I should note an intermittant problem. Sometimes, though rarely, when I boot up the machine gets stopped at a different step. It prints 'L1 Enabled; Diabling L0S", and gets hung there (that is, it never fully boots up and I never get a working prompt). I've done some google searching on this message - there are lots of people who talk about it, but I can't find anyone whose machine gets stopped there. This problem occurs about 1/10th of the time.

Tolstoi · l33t Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 678

Try the Systemrescuecd - at least it works here with my card.

Those problems you described with L1 and LOS - could possibly be related to ASPM enabled/disabled ? You could try to boot with the kernel line set to ASPM off.

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

Well, I gave the Systemrescuecd a try, with no luck. I wasn't even able to boot off the systemrescuecd. I got the image from http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage (is that right?). When I selected the default setup, it got stuck at processing uevents (and by stuck, I mean that the machine became frozen at that step and never booted up). When I selected 64 bit (my machine is 64bit), it got stuck at syslog-ng.

What could possibly make a systemrescuecd choke?

Tolstoi · l33t Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 678

Strange

. What machine do you have?

At least you know now that you didn't do much wrong with your setup before. I'm afraid the problems you run into are some really essential ones. Perhaps you open up a new thread with all the information you can provide.

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

About the ASPM enabled/disable suggestion, my menuconfig is actually a little confusing on this issue. I've uploaded a screenshot:
http://www2.astro.psu.edu/~jyoung/menuconfig_screenshot.png

As you can see, the 'PCI Express ASPM' control is permanently on with -*-. I tried recompiling the kernel with all of 'PCI Support' turned off, but the results were the same (maching got stuck once while brining up wlan0, and another time froze after reporting "L1 Enabled; Diabling L0S".

Before I start another thread, I need to ask - does this sound like it might be a hardware issue? Could I have a bad wireless card? The intermittent nature of the L0S issue suggests that to me.

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

Tolstoi, my machine is a Dell Studio XPS13.

Tolstoi · l33t Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 678

If you go on the help option of menuconfig you can read some information about the related setting. BTW I have the same PCI configuration as you have. Try setting pcie_aspm=off in the kernel line. See: http://smackerelofopinion.blogspot.de/2011/03/making-sense-of-pcie-aspm.html

Good luck!

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

Reading this blog gives me cause for optimism. "... some PCIe devices that case Linux hang at boot ..." - this sounds exactly like what's happening to me. I'm going to try this when later today, after I tie up a few duties, and I'll report back.

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

Sadly, no luck. In the interest of thoroughness I tried all the pcie_aspm settings (off, default, performance, and powersave), and the results were the same - it froze while bringing up wlan0. And, the LOS problem recurred several times (perhaps 1 time in 10), suprisingly once even with pcie_aspm=off. When this LOS problem occured, I tried again with the same setting.

You know, it's really odd - it did sound like they were talking about the LOS issue that I've be having.

Tolstoi · l33t Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 678

In this thread : https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=138105&p=3 they suggest the pcie_aspm=force option in the kernel line or a newer kernel preferably 3.3.1 and up.

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

Wow Tolstoi, that did it! I can now boot up with the intel card in and detect it as wlan0 - this is a HUGE breakthrough. Seriously, I started this thread in 2010, almost two years ago, and this is the first time.

Before we log this thread as solved, I'd like to actually fire up the wireless and make sure that it's actually working. When I execute the commands below (which is my normal procedure for starting up the wireless), wlan0 waits for the carrier and then times out. My wife's machine can log onto the same wireless just fine, which isn't encrypted, so I know it's not the network.

ifconfig wlan0 up
iwlist wlan0 scan # scans for (and detects) the wireless network
iwconfig wlan0 essid <network name>
dhcpcd wlan0 # waits for carrier and times out

Tolstoi · l33t Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 678

Hey, glad you got it working

!

I'd go over the documentation again and see if you've forgot something, perhaps edit /etc/conf.d/net accordingly. You shouldn't be too far away from the solution now.

As posted before, if you have WPA/WPA2 you need wpa_supplicant because the other ones can't deal with WPA.

jyoung · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 443

Hey Folks, I was finally able to connect; in fact, I'm writing to you using the intel card. Thanks to everyone for all the help - you're awesome!