AR242X wireless turning off during boot of Asus x50r laptop

Hi,

Please try the alternative procedure, described by miguel's last response here:

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/58385

So try installing this madwifi driver instead:

http://snapshots.madwifi-project.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3986-20090409.tar.gz

Furthermore, make sure wireless is really enabled by checking if there is a hardware switch for your wireless on the side or back of your laptop. Also check in the BIOS if you can change the wireless configuration there...

The reason I am writing all this, is because "sudo lshw -C network" gives the following BAD output for your Atheros chipset:

network DISABLED

The "DISABLED" should not be written there, if your wireless is really active and working normally.

Regards,

Mark

Hi,

Also do the following:

Open a terminal and enter this:

sudo gedit /sys/devices/platform/asus-laptop/wlan

If the wlan file contains the value 0, change it to 1

So the wlan file should only contain this value:

1

Regards,

Mark

Thanks for your help so far

Running make in the untarred directory of the new driver gives me the errors

Makefile.inc:96: scripts/get_arch.mk: No such file or directory
Makefile.inc:100: ath_hal/ah_target.inc: No such file or directory
Makefile.inc:161: *** TARGET is invalid, valid targets are: . Stop.

The wireless switch on the left of my laptop is definitely on

sudo gedit /sys/devices/platform/asus-laptop/wlan brings up the error message Could not open the file sys/devices/platform/asus-laptop/wlan unexpected error no such device on opening gedit, and the error ** (gedit:6166): WARNING **: Hit unhandled case 0 (No such device) in parse_error. in terminal

OKAY i've done some poking about on the internet and editing the sys files is difficult with Linux and rather than editing the wlan text file is difficult and I was recommended to do this:-

sudo gedit /etc/rc.local

and add
echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/asus-laptop/wlan

this has given me this output from terminal

sudo lshw -C network
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter
       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: wmaster0
       version: 01
       serial: 00:15:af:7d:4f:a8
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath5k latency=0 module=ath5k multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: L2 100 Mbit Ethernet Adapter
       vendor: Attansic Technology Corp.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:06:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: a0
       serial: 00:1e:8c:cb:11:a7
       size: 100MB/s
       capacity: 100MB/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=atl2 driverversion=2.0.4 duplex=full firmware=L2 ip=192.168.1.5 latency=0 link=yes module=atl2 multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100MB/s
  *-network DISABLED
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: pan0
       serial: e2:a1:58:88:5a:4c
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A link=yes multicast=yes

(ie no longer disabled next to my wireless card, but still no wireless access)

I have re-downloaded the madwifi drivers, made and installed

(this version http://snapshots.madwifi-project.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3986-20090409.tar.gz which is slightly different to the one listed in the other question I was referred to, does that matter?)

Now I can see mine, and my neighbours networks but cannot connect to my own. Then after 60 seconds of trying it gives up and I can no longer see mine, or my neighbours addresses

If i reboot I can see the wireless networks again but cannot connect and all they all disapear after 60 seconds.

Hi,

OK, looks like it is time for you to try wicd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicd_(Linux_Network_Manager)

 instead of network manager:

First connect your pc to the wireless router using a LAN cable (also known as an ethernet cable).

Then open a Terminal and enter the following commands:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install wicd

This wicd installation will remove and replace NetworkManager. Please proceed with this and then reboot.

Then you should have a new menu entry for wicd. You will need to configure wicd to use your wireless network.

Hope it helps,

Regards,

Mark

Turns out that most of my problems have been caused by wireless turning off during boot and that Fn-F2 doesnt swtich it back on.

I was unable to alter the file /sys/devices/platform/asus-laptop/wlan because only God himself has the rights to edit it.

This page http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/asus-laptop-and-wireless-on-ubuntu-intrepid-681923/ helps

Thanks for your help mark.