Ubuntu
acpi package

Laptop computer won't connect to wireless network when running on battery power.

Asked by Steven W Paulsen

I've recently installed Ubuntu version 10.10 on my new Dell Inspiron N7010 laptop computer. It is now a dual boot between Windows 7 and Linux. I use Linux quite a bit at work and have become quite fond with it. Windows 7 is a snail in comparison to Ubuntu Linux.

The problem that I'm having is if the AC power cord is plugged in, everything works fine. However, if it is running off of battery power, something happens to the wireless network. The connections are displayed but the laptop will not connect. If I logon to Linux and connect to the wireless network with AC plugged in, then disconnect the AC, the connection is lost. It acts like their is some power management configuration that enables the wireless only when the AC is connected. The following is the hardware configuration of the laptop's network.

steve@steve:~$ sudo lshw -C network
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: BCM4313 802.11b/g LP-PHY
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: eth1
       version: 01
       serial: 1c:65:9d:b1:f2:62
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl0 driverversion=5.60.48.36 ip=192.168.1.4 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:17 memory:f0500000-f0503fff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: AR8152 v1.1 Fast Ethernet
       vendor: Atheros Communications
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: c1
       serial: f0:4d:a2:5e:2a:7d
       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=atl1c driverversion=1.0.0.2-NAPI firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
       resources: irq:46 memory:f0400000-f043ffff ioport:2000(size=128)
steve@steve:~$

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Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Have you logged a bug with acpi?
Do you have the latest BIOS?

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Steven W Paulsen (swpaulsen) said : 		#2

No on both counts. I had to open another webpage and peruse what ACPI is. If necessary, I'm sure that I can download the latest BIOS from Dell. The laptop is a brand new 64-bit system with an Intel processor. The wireless network works just fine in either AC or battery power when Windows 7 is booted up.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

What windows does is of no value, its a different OS with different support. I suggest you log a bug with acpi.

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Steven W Paulsen (swpaulsen) said : 		#4

I've investigated the problem further and with the system booted up in Windows 7, I changed the Power Management setting for the wireless network so the network had full system performance when running on battery power. After restarting and booting into Linux, the wireless network now connects under battery power, but for some reason, Mozilla Firefox is now losing the connection. I will log a bug with ACPI after I've exhausted everything that I can think of.

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