Acer Aspire 5250 with Atheros AR9485 wireless

Can you give the output of:

sudo lshw -C network; lsb_release -a; uname -a; sudo rfkill list

Thanks

seth@seth-Aspire-5250:~$ sudo lshw -C network; lsb_release -a; uname -a; sudo rfkill list
[sudo] password for seth:
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: AR8152 v2.0 Fast Ethernet
       vendor: Atheros Communications
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:06:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: c1
       serial: b8:70:f4:f4:90:ae
       size: 100Mbit/s
       capacity: 100Mbit/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=1.0.1.0-NAPI duplex=full firmware=N/A ip=192.168.0.133 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s
       resources: irq:41 memory:d0200000-d023ffff ioport:2000(size=128)
  *-network DISABLED
       description: Wireless interface
       product: AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter
       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:07:00.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 01
       serial: 74:de:2b:38:f8:12
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.0.0-14-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
       resources: irq:19 memory:d0100000-d017ffff memory:bf000000-bf00ffff
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10
Codename: oneiric
Linux seth-Aspire-5250 3.0.0-14-generic #23-Ubuntu SMP Mon Nov 21 20:28:43 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: yes

seth@seth-Aspire-5250:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10
Codename: oneiric

seth@seth-Aspire-5250:~$ uname -a
Linux seth-Aspire-5250 3.0.0-14-generic #23-Ubuntu SMP Mon Nov 21 20:28:43 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

seth@seth-Aspire-5250:~$ sudo rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: yes

this is of course with a cat5 cable plugged in and i am connected to the internet via said cat5 cable

Update: I attempted something new this evening, I left the ethernet cabled connected to my laptop, but in network manager disabled the connection and forced it to connect using wireless. Strangely the laptop is now otherwise working perfectly in this state (with a network cable plugged in but not connected in network manager and connected to the internet via wireless, Atheros 9485) but if i remove the network cable the system will revert back to it's old symptoms, (freezing the entire system). currently attempting to find a driver update for my ethernet.

updated al1c drivers for ethernet device and ath9k drivers for wireless with compat-wireless 3.2. Neither solved the problem. I am essentially back to square one.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbook

Shows the chip works out of the box with the recent Precise kernel. I suggest you grab the latest Alpha ISO (Precise is prerelease and is the next LTS). See if it works in liveCD. If it does then I suggest you install it. There is also a driver you can compile for earlier releases on there too.

I downloaded and launched from a CDimage of 12.04 from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ and i crashed shortly after selecting "Try Ubuntu" So far i have nothing. After forcing the computer to restart via the power button i again attempted to boot from the 12.04 liveCD and (for kicks and giggles attempted to connect to my wireless network. After entering my network password, the system promptly crashed. Again I have nothing.

Did you MD5 test the ISO you downloaded?

please excuse my noob moment but what do you mean by MD5 test the iso?

ignore that last comment I posted. The 12.04 iso I downloaded is essentially a pre-release so it does not have a hash on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes
and as for the 11.10 that is currently on the laptop: I upgraded to 11.10 via terminal from 11.04 that was installed on the hard drive and i know it was good (despite not having native drivers for the wireless)
If you believe that the original 11.04 install could be a problem, i am currently in the process of hash checking the original 11.04 iso and will post back with results. But I do not think it would make a difference seeing as i upgraded to 11.10 via terminal and should have downloaded everything it needed. I do not remember any errors during the upgrade

the original 11.04 iso checks out, all clean

come on. anyone? I'm determined to make this work but I've exhausted just about all options

has this question fallen off the radar? is there any hope for it?

Could try ndiswrapper + 64bit windows driver

*SOLVED* I rolled back to 10.10 and installed compat-wireless 2.6-35(?) with ath5k and ath9k. (I prefer 10.10 anyways) I had heard (and later confirmed) that linuxwireless.org was working on a a new release of ath9k that addresses the issue with this card model

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k/todo#AR9485_support

As of 2/26/2012 they had not fixed it yet. Nonetheless my problem is solved.

Why is this listed as solved. Seth was able to get atheros working in 10.10, which is to be orphaned as soon as 12.04 comes out, and in 12.04, the problem doesn't seem to be solved. It surely isn't in 11.10. Given that new ubuntu releases are usually closer to bleeding edge than to stable (for the first few months), and given that many of us use linux for our work, this is discouraging, to say the least.

No idea, the only person who can mark it as solved it the asked....you.

I DID NOT MARK THIS AS SOLVED, I ONLY STATED THAT I HAD "SOLVED" MY PROBLEM BY ROLLING BACK TO 10.10, but even that isn't a 100% fix. I soon noticed that anytime a major update was applied or any change was made to the kernel the problem would re-appear and I was again left with a very expensive paperweight. As stated before there is rumored to be a fix that linux-wireless.com is working on but I'm starting to suspect that is nothing more than some pixels on the screen and nothing is actually being done to rectify the situation.

i also ran into a problem with the computer randomly going into sleep mode (normally after switching from windows to linux) and not being able to bring the computer back to a functioning state without doing a hard shutdown, or more often, taking the battery out. This appears to be a common problem with linux on ANY laptop, but not to the degree that i experienced. i was never able to fix that problem. Unfortunately due to a few stupid persons who borrowed the computer, my linux partition somehow was deleted and i am now back to windows :/. But I seem to remember the model number reported by sudo lshw -C network changing after i installed compat-wireless 2.6-35 with ath5k and ath9k, but I don't know the new model that it reported and, as stated, sadly no longer have linux installed on that laptop.

Link to the bug report with potentially useful information: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/924087

On 04/03/2012 09:10 PM, Seth wrote:
> Question #185159 on gnome-nettool in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-nettool/+question/185159
>
> Status: Solved => Open
>
> Seth is still having a problem:
> Link to the bug report with potentially useful information:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/924087
>
Seth:

I found two items, on another bug report, that straightened out my
problems. The most important was, in the BIOS, moving the network boot
to the top of the boot list. The other was:

Create the file /etc/modprobe.d/ath9k.conf

Insert a single line:

options ath9k nohwcrypt=1

Try that.

Art Edwards

You can do this by running:

echo "options ath9k nohwcrypt=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/ath9k.conf

I have an Asus Zenbook UX31e with the same wireless adapter inside. It works ugly..
Signal level is to low (instead Win7), I have a lot problems with Internet connection which often fails.

Power management was disabled, needle option "options ath9k nohwcrypt=1" was added..

Can you help with this?