Ubuntu
acpi package

Wireless working fine only with wall power

Asked by ginosal

Hi. My wireless connection works very well with Windows 7 on this Acer laptop. On Ubuntu, i was experiencing some problems (unstable connection). Some web pages were very difficult to load on Ubuntu 10.4, so I upgraded to 10.10. It seemed to be working fine, but it was because the laptop was powered by wall power and not by battery. When I disconnect AC power, my connection becomes unstable again.

My Network controller is: " Atheros Communications Inc. AR9287 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)".

The Kernel is: 2.6.37-020637rc2-generic

To be more precise: Network manager always displays my connection as working, but when my laptop is battery powered, some sites are very slow or unreachable (connection is timed out). Please help me! Thank you in advance.

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Ubuntu acpi Edit question
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ginosal
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Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

You are using an unofficial kernel, if you boot to 2.6.35-25 does it work?

Revision history for this message
ginosal (driver-8) said : 		#2

I'm trying now. In the meanwhile, I can add the result of lsmod | grep ath, someone says there could be a module conflict:

lsmod |grep ath
ath9k 111737 0
mac80211 278659 1 ath9k
ath9k_common 3151 1 ath9k
ath9k_hw 288136 2 ath9k,ath9k_common
ath 17109 2 ath9k,ath9k_hw
cfg80211 166442 3 ath9k,mac80211,ath

Revision history for this message
ginosal (driver-8) said : 		#3

Same problem on kernel: 2.6.35-26-generic

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#4

I suggest you stay booted to 2.6.35-26 and run:

ubuntu-bug acpi

What make / model is the laptop?

Revision history for this message
ginosal (driver-8) said : 		#5

It's an Acer Aspire 5742Z

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#6

Run:

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Change:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=“quite splash”
and change it to:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=“quite splash acpi_osi=”

Save the new file and close gedit, then run:

sudo update-grub

Reboot to test

Source:
http://www.linlap.com/wiki/acer+aspire+5742#comment_b74574655d37234652776155b84cfa51

Revision history for this message
ginosal (driver-8) said : 		#7

Nothing, still the same... reading your link, I've also noticed that my screen light doesn't decrease when i'm using battery and I can't decrease it using power management options... this is very strange.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#8

Sounds like an acpi bug then

Revision history for this message
ginosal (driver-8) said : 		#9

Another strange thing: the wireless connection works perfectly on the live dvd of ubuntu 10.4! Unbelievable!

Revision history for this message
ginosal (driver-8) said : 		#10

I'll try this solution too: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/139022

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ginosal (driver-8) said : 		#11

nothing, nothing, nothing... I'll wait for Natty in April.

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Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure) said : 		#12

Your problem loading web pages is likely to be easier to fix than this, so you might consider going back to Ubuntu 10.04, and then asking for help here at https://answers.launchpad.net with that issue (if it occurs again).

Revision history for this message
ginosal (driver-8) said : 		#13

Hi Eliah! Thank you for your answer. Sorry, but I don't understand why I should go back to 10.04, since I had the same problems with that Ubuntu version. May you explain it to me? Sorry for my English! :)

Revision history for this message
ginosal (driver-8) said : 		#14

Well, i've "solved" the problem. I've removed Ubuntu and installed OpenSUSE. Everything works fine, with or without wall power :) Thank you, anyway.

Revision history for this message
Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure) said : 		#15

I thought your problem loading website was a separate problem from the wireless connection breaking when you ran off of battery power. If you were experiencing this problem with 10.04 as well, then indeed it would be useless to revert to that version.

I am glad openSUSE works well for you. If at some future point you want to try to get Ubuntu working, knowing that openSUSE works (and being able to examine the openSUSE system to see how it is configured differently) might help to solve the problem. In that case, please feel free to reopen this question.

Revision history for this message
ginosal (driver-8) said : 		#16

Hi Eliah, thanks again for your help! I have to say that I've solved the problem on Ubuntu/Mint. I was lucky... I discovered that when the laptop was connected to the wall, iwconfig "said":

wlan0 Power Management:off

When it was battery powered, it said:

wlan0 Power Management:on

and the connection was poor. So I typed: sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off

Now power management for wlan0 is always off, even when the laptop is battery powered and the connection always works fine! Now I only have to discover how to make this setting permanent! :) Well, thank you all!