# [Solved] Atheros AR9285 Disabled (hp dv3 laptop)

## Youwotma

I am a gentoo noob, this is my first installation. Have been using linux (ubuntu) for a year or so.

I have a HP laptop (Pavilion dv3-serie) with a Atheros AR9285 integrated wifi card. I have no network interface for that card (no wlan0 in ifconfig) and the card is shown "DISABLED" in lshw

My laptop has a enable/disable wifi toggle button with the LED in orange (orange = disabled, blue = enabled) but pushing the button does not help.

I have a 2.6.34 kernel and i have installed compat-wireless 2.6.35 and 2.6.36-rc2, with no luck. 

Some commands:

#lspci

```

...

03:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)

...

```

#lshw -C network

```

  *-network DISABLED      

       description: Ethernet interface

       product: AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)

       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.

       physical id: 0

       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0

       logical name: wlan0

       version: 01

       serial: 0c:60:76:6a:f1:d7

       width: 64 bits

       clock: 33MHz

       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical

       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=2.6.34-gentoo-r1 firmware=N/A latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes

       resources: irq:18 memory:d9000000-d900ffff

...

```

#rfkill list

```

0: phy0: Wireless LAN

    Soft blocked: no

    Hard blocked: no

```

#dmesg | grep -C 3 ath9k

```

Freeing unused kernel memory: 576k freed

udev: starting version 151

cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain

ath9k 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18

ath9k 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64

ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x6a

ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a direct regpair map

ath: Country alpha2 being used: 00

ath: Regpair used: 0x6a

phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'ath9k_rate_control'

Registered led device: ath9k-phy0::radio

Registered led device: ath9k-phy0::assoc

Registered led device: ath9k-phy0::tx

Registered led device: ath9k-phy0::rx

phy0: Atheros AR9285 Rev:2 mem=0xffffc900051c0000, irq=18

HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: power state changed by ACPI to D0

HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: power state changed by ACPI to D0
```

I think i have configured the kernell correctly

Thank you all.Last edited by Youwotma on Thu Sep 02, 2010 7:06 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## cach0rr0

howdy

check and see if the interface shows via

```

cat /proc/net/wireless

```

it should based on what you've posted above. 

assuming it does, does anything useful get thrown to dmesg if you

```

ifconfig wlan0 up

```

?

Complete shot in the dark here. I have an AR928x, never run into this, so not sure what exactly is going on.

----------

## Youwotma

 *cach0rr0 wrote:*   

> howdy
> 
> check and see if the interface shows via
> 
> ```
> ...

 

thank you! it was only the "ifconfig wlan0 up" i thought ifconfig listed every network interface (even if it was down), so when i didn't saw the interfaced listed i thought something was wrong, than you very much!

now everything is working, sorry for wasting your time

----------

## cach0rr0

no worries, if you knew the answer you wouldn't ask, and if you don't know the answer asking isn't a waste of time at all  :Smile: 

ifconfig shows everything that's up

ifconfig -a shows everything, up or down, provided the driver for the network device has loaded successfully, and should more or less match /proc/net/dev 

-if someone's device isn't showing in /proc/net/dev (everything including wireless) or /proc/net/wireless (just wireless) I assume driver or firmware problem

-if it shows there, but not in ifconfig output, I assume they forgot the -a switch, or that they already have the driver bits taken care of, and now simply need to configure client-side tools (e.g. WICD - which i highly recommend)

----------

## phunehehe

Hi,

I also have an AR928x, but my device doesn't show in cat 

```
/proc/net/wireless
```

. What kernel module or driver do you use?

Thanks,

----------

## daddio

ath9k is the driver for that series of atheros chipset

----------

## phunehehe

 *daddio wrote:*   

> ath9k is the driver for that series of atheros chipset

 

That's exactly what I'm trying, but I failed. Can you show me how you configure your kernel? Maybe you can give me your kernel.conf file?

----------

## mr.sande

@phunehehe: Is your card internal (pci) or external (usb)? Because the usb card has its own driver and needs firmware. If you have the driver as a module, have you checked that it and its dependencies are loaded?

```
% lsmod | grep ath

ath9k                  72204  0 

ath9k_common            2441  1 ath9k

mac80211              147560  2 ath9k,ath9k_common

ath9k_hw              213857  2 ath9k,ath9k_common

ath                     8722  2 ath9k,ath9k_hw

cfg80211              139086  4 ath9k,ath9k_common,mac80211,ath
```

----------

## phunehehe

@mr.sande: mine is an internal card, and 

```
lsmod | grep ath
```

 gives the same modules that you listed. Do I need to enable them somewhere else?

----------

## mr.sande

If the drivers are loaded and your card still doesnt show up in ifconfig -a, then Im sorry to say I dont know what to do.

If its a problem with connecting Id try wicd, because its nice  :Smile: 

----------

## phunehehe

Yes, my card does show up in ifconfig -a as wlan0. And when I try ifconfig wlan0 up it shows up in ifconfig as well.

```
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:22:43:61:a2:f0  

          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 

          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
```

It shows up it /proc/net/dev too (with a bunch of zeros behind wlan0), and I don't have a file called /proc/net/wireless

However, I can't do iwlist wlan0 scanning, because iwlist says

```
wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning.
```

I guess that's why wicd cannot detect any network. Any hope for me?

----------

## mr.sande

iwlist will not scan if the interface is down, do 'ifconfig wlan0 up' and see if it works. wicd is supposed to do that for you though.

----------

## phunehehe

 *mr.sande wrote:*   

> iwlist will not scan if the interface is down, do 'ifconfig wlan0 up' and see if it works. wicd is supposed to do that for you though.

 

I am still unable to make it work yet. Tried bringing the interface up before scanning but that doesn't work either.

----------

## gr0x0rd

phunehehe, I just went through the paces of getting my new AR9285 up and running with the ath9k driver. I was having issues the same issues you were: the answer was in the kernel config. I was playing around with options, recompiled a new kernel and presto, wpa_supplicant started working with the card. Here is my kernel config, hopefully you can mirror and get success. I'm using 2.6.34-gentoo-r12.

```

[*] Networking support  --->

 -*-   Wireless  --->

  <*>   cfg80211 - wireless configuration API                      

    [ ]     nl80211 testmode command                            

    [ ]     enable developer warnings                              

    [ ]     cfg80211 regulatory debugging                           

    [*]     enable powersave by default                            

    [ ]     cfg80211 DebugFS entries                                

    [*]     cfg80211 wireless extensions compatibility                 

    [*]   Wireless extensions sysfs files                            

   <*>   Common routines for IEEE802.11 drivers 

    [ ]   lib80211 debugging messages                                

   <*>   Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211)            

            Default rate control algorithm (Minstrel)  --->            

     [ ]   Enable mac80211 mesh networking (pre-802.11s) support     

     -*-   Enable LED triggers                                      

     [ ]   Export mac80211 internals in DebugFS                      

     [ ]   Select mac80211 debugging features  ---> 

 Device Drivers  ---> 

[*] Network device support  ---> 

 [*]   Wireless LAN  ---> 

 <M>   Atheros Wireless Cards  --->

   [*]   Atheros wireless debugging                                  

  <  >   Atheros 5xxx wireless cards support                       

  <M>   Atheros 802.11n wireless cards support                     

   [*]     Atheros ath9k debugging                                  

  < >   Atheros AR9170 802.11n USB support  
```

Good luck!

----------

## phunehehe

 *gr0x0rd wrote:*   

> phunehehe, I just went through the paces of getting my new AR9285 up and running with the ath9k driver. I was having issues the same issues you were: the answer was in the kernel config. I was playing around with options, recompiled a new kernel and presto, wpa_supplicant started working with the card. Here is my kernel config, hopefully you can mirror and get success. I'm using 2.6.34-gentoo-r12.
> 
> Good luck!

 

Thanks for the hope, I will try this out soon!

----------

## phunehehe

@gr0x0rd You rock! Thanks for the help!

----------

