# Wireless Networks Disappearing

## LD

I'm having some issues getting wireless networking working on my netbook. I'm using Kernel 3.6.10, Gnome 3 with Network manager. My wireless card is an Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter. Now, the drivers will load and I'll get the wireless wlan0 device when I boot up, but I can't connect to either a secured or unsecured network, and as I try it sudenly goes unavailable and the network adapter disappears in ifconfig. I'm not certain where the problem is. Dmesg | tail shows this.

```
[ 8349.798015] ath: phy0: Failed to wakeup in 500us

[ 8349.931763] ath: phy0: Chip reset failed

[ 8349.931777] ath: phy0: Unable to reset hardware; reset status -22 (freq 2437 MHz)

[ 8349.998021] ath: phy0: RX failed to go idle in 10 ms RXSM=0xffffffff

[ 8349.998021] ath: phy0: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms AR_CR=0xffffffff AR_DIAG_SW=0xffffffff DMADBG_7=0xffffffff

[12343.590785] nf_conntrack: automatic helper assignment is deprecated and it will be removed soon. Use the iptables CT target to attach helpers instead.

[36492.438316] perl (15410) used greatest stack depth: 3400 bytes left

```

Any help would be appreciated. FYI, all drivers for the network are compiled in kernel.

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## Logicien

You should have a look to About ath9k and see if your chipset AR928X is explicitly supported by the ath9k driver. The output of the lscpi command should give you the exact chipset version.

I never compile network drivers directly in the kernel. It do not need them to access the root partition where those drivers can be load. It is also easier to pass them options from a .conf file in /etc/modprobe.d/ then add kernel parameters when needed. So you can try to put the ath9k driver in module and see if the behavior is different.

For tests I would disable networkmanager daemon and use wireless tools, iw and others line commands. You can have more informations to stdout and logs than just dmesg.

I suppose your wireless card is in the PCIe bus, is it? Deactivate the power management on the card is a good starting point:

```
iwconfig wlan0 power off
```

or

```
iw dev wlan0 set power_save off
```

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## LD

According to the link you gave me the wireless card is supported by ath9k driver. I've recompiled the kernel with that driver in module as recommended as well. 

I will let you know what I end up with.

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## LD

So far I've attempted everything for the most part on the soft ware side. Fact is that the system seems to be randomly failing on the driver. It will just suddenly drop and all I get is dmesg full of failure.

```
localhost chris # dmesg | tail

[  531.725022] ath: phy0: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms AR_CR=0xffffffff AR_DIAG_SW=0xffffffff DMADBG_7=0xffffffff

[  536.721025] ath: phy0: Failed to wakeup in 500us

[  536.735025] ath: phy0: RX failed to go idle in 10 ms RXSM=0xffffffff

[  536.735025] ath: phy0: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms AR_CR=0xffffffff AR_DIAG_SW=0xffffffff DMADBG_7=0xffffffff

[  541.713048] ath: phy0: Failed to wakeup in 500us

[  541.724016] ath: phy0: RX failed to go idle in 10 ms RXSM=0xffffffff

[  541.724016] ath: phy0: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms AR_CR=0xffffffff AR_DIAG_SW=0xffffffff DMADBG_7=0xffffffff

[  546.721023] ath: phy0: Failed to wakeup in 500us

[  546.732013] ath: phy0: RX failed to go idle in 10 ms RXSM=0xffffffff

[  546.732013] ath: phy0: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms AR_CR=0xffffffff AR_DIAG_SW=0xffffffff DMADBG_7=0xffffffff

```

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## LD

I'm thinking hardware driver at this point. I unloaded it and tried to reload, I got this.

```
[ 1063.215277] ath9k: ath9k: Driver unloaded

[ 1111.871095] ath9k 0000:02:00.0: Refused to change power state, currently in D3

[ 1111.995479] ath: phy1: Couldn't reset chip

[ 1111.995490] ath: phy1: Unable to initialize hardware; initialization status: -5

[ 1111.995505] ath9k 0000:02:00.0: Failed to initialize device

[ 1111.995578] ath9k: probe of 0000:02:00.0 failed with error -5

```

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## LD

Anyone know why the hardware driver would suddenly fail?

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## wcg

Here is an archive of the development mailing list for the ath9k driver:

http://www.mail-archive.com/ath9k-devel@lists.ath9k.org/

For example:

http://www.mail-archive.com/ath9k-devel@lists.ath9k.org/msg09474.html

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