# acerhk and the travelmate 290 laptop

## spiceflow

I'm trying to get wlan working on my tm290 laptop, but this requires using acerhk to enable the wireless LED.  I've compiled the acerhk module, and there are no errors when I modprobe it.  /proc/driver/acerhk shows all the proper files.  However, when I run `echo on > /proc/driver/acerhk/wirelessled' I get zippo squat.  I also get nothing if I press one of the hotkeys and check dmesg.  It seems like acerhk isn't working at all, even though it loads ok.

Development on acerhk has pretty much stopped, so if any of you have experience with this program and could help me out I'd appreciate it.

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## lpetersen

I'm afraid I can't help other than by telling you that you're not alone: I have exactly the same problem with my Acer Extensa 2902LMi. The driver loads (both ipw2200 and ndiswrapper seem to work up to that point), iwconfig shows the wlan hardware is recognized, but the led stays off whatever I do and no reception is possible.  :Sad:  Funny, the wlan switch as such is functional, and shifting it from one position to the other shows up as a key event in dmesg (or showkey, or xev, if I assign a keycode to it). Great. Of course this doesn't really help a lot.  :Rolling Eyes: 

What is particularly confusing is that a lot of people seem to be able to get their wlans to work on extensa 2902LMi's (as well as TM290's) with the acerhk and one of the ndiswrapper or ipw2200 modules. Sometimes I have the impression that two acer notebooks with the same precise model name and number may differ more than two notebooks from different series...   :Confused: 

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## spiceflow

Well I found a solution eventually.  I just needed to add some extra parameters.  The command I use is:

```
modprobe acerhk force_series=290 usedritek=1 verbose=1

echo 1 > /proc/driver/acerhk/wirelessled
```

This should turn on your wireless LED.

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## lpetersen

Thanks for your quick reply! In fact, I had stumbled across these additional module parameters as well, but unfortunately, they didn't work for me. Probably there is a difference between the 290 series and the 2900 series (which my lappy seems to belong to). I even did RTFS (i.e. acerhk.c, although I really don't have a clue about kernel programming), just to discover that it does support a "2000" series, but no "2900". I'll try the other possible force_series=... values anyway when I have the time, just to make sure.

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## lpetersen

Oops, I was telling bull  :Shocked:   :Shocked:   :Shocked:   :Shocked:  ...

modprobe acerhk force_series=290 usedritek=1 works perfectly now. Don't know what I was doing wrong the other day...   :Embarassed: 

Thanks again,

Lars (happy wlan user now  :Very Happy:  )

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## The_Paranoid

I have a TM 292LMi and try to get my WLAN working, too  :Wink: 

emerges wireless-tools and acerhk. Compiled WLAN Support in Kernel and acerhk (WLAN LED) works... but i don't see any new device . iwconfigs only shows eth0 and lo  :Sad: 

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## lpetersen

Paranoid, you have to emerge a driver for your wireless NIC first. acerhk is just for switching the NIC's power on and off, and wireless-tools contains only the generic wireless networking support software.

You have a choice between either ipw2200 (GPL'd, but still under development) or ndiswrapper (a software interface which allows you to use the Windows driver). Search the forum for further hints on how to configure these packages.

HTH,

Lars

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## The_Paranoid

Thx  :Wink:  got it working with ipw2200

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## Sodki

Hello, i have an Acer Travelmate 290 and i'm also trying to get my wlan to work. I have configured my kernel and emerged ipw2200, wich loads flawlessly according to dmesg. I also have wireless-tools and acerhk (wich loads flawlessly), and I can make the wireless led go up and down. The problem is that ifconfig -a and iwconfig don't show my wireless device. Any ideas? Could this be related to module loading order? I have already tried acerhk first and ipw2200 second and the other way around, but the results are the same. I really don't know what to try next.

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## Sodki

I got it working. My travelmate 290 required ipw2100 and not ipw2200. lsmod told me.   :Very Happy: 

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## blursmurf

anywayz... if you realize.. the wirelessled would not always work at boot time... i looked through some of the rc init scripts and hacked one together which will echo 1 to wirelessled which will enable the wireless...

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## grungemachine

Hi I have an Acer Travelmate 290 and am trying to run WLAN on it. I have (i) recompiled the kernel for WLAN support (ii) installed ipw2200 module, drivers and firmware, (iii) installed acerhk.

However, I am facing the following problems:

1. Whenever I boot my laptop with the wireless switch ON, the system does not boot and gives the error message "Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt"

2. When I boot with the wireless switch OFF, the system boots, but after booting if I switch ON the wireless switch the system hangs.

I would greatly appreciate any help on this...

Thanks.

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