# atheros wireless card not recognized by madwifi drivers

## darkmanPPT

Hi,

I am experiencing troubles with my wireless card adapter. I have searched on the forum archive for this problem, without success...

The problem is the following. I have a notebook with an integrated, Atheros based, wireless card:

```

#lspci

...

00:06.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)

... 

```

Following Madwifi documentation, I have installed madwifi-ng and madwifi-ng-tools packages. The kernel is configured as required (CONFIG_CRYPTO=y). When I load the ath_pci module

```

#lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by

wlan_tkip              11776  0

wlan_ccmp               7552  0

wlan_xauth              1408  0

wlan_acl                3968  0

wlan_scan_ap            4864  0

ath_pci                90532  0

wlan_scan_sta          13312  0

ath_rate_sample        11904  1 ath_pci

wlan                  186204  8 wlan_tkip,wlan_ccmp,wlan_xauth,wlan_acl,wlan_scan_ap,ath_pci,wlan_scan_sta,ath_rate_sample

ath_hal               187344  2 ath_pci,ath_rate_sample 

```

the wireless card is still not recognized by iwconfig:

```

#iwconfig

eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

```

Anybody with the same problem? Suggestions?

----------

## cyrillic

What does dmesg say when you load the ath_pci module ?

Mine looks like this.

```
ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.

ath_hal: 0.9.17.2 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)

wlan: 0.8.4.2 (0.9.2)

ath_rate_sample: 1.2 (0.9.2)

ath_pci: 0.9.4.5 (0.9.2)

PCI: Enabling device 0000:00:13.0 (0014 -> 0016)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:13.0[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18

wifi0: 11a rates: 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps

wifi0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps

wifi0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps

wifi0: turboA rates: 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps

wifi0: H/W encryption support: WEP AES AES_CCM TKIP

wifi0: mac 5.6 phy 4.1 5ghz radio 1.7 2ghz radio 2.3

wifi0: Use hw queue 1 for WME_AC_BE traffic

wifi0: Use hw queue 0 for WME_AC_BK traffic

wifi0: Use hw queue 2 for WME_AC_VI traffic

wifi0: Use hw queue 3 for WME_AC_VO traffic

wifi0: Use hw queue 8 for CAB traffic

wifi0: Use hw queue 9 for beacons

wifi0: Atheros 5212: mem=0xdb800000, irq=18 
```

```
# iwconfig

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wifi0     no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:""

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated

          Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:14 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3

          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:off

          Link Quality=0/94  Signal level=-95 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:1200  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

eth1      no wireless extensions.

eth2      no wireless extensions. 
```

----------

## darkmanPPT

Loading modules, I get:

```

# dmesg

...

ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.

ath_hal: 0.9.16.16 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)

wlan: 0.8.4.2 (svn 1531)

ath_rate_sample: 1.2 (svn 1531)

ath_pci: 0.9.4.5 (svn 1531)

PCI: Enabling device 0000:00:06.0 (0000 -> 0002)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:06.0[A]: no GSI

wifi%d: request_irq failed

```

Then, I tried booting with kernel parameter acpi=off; dmesg output is:

```

...

ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.

ath_hal: 0.9.16.16 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)

wlan: 0.8.4.2 (svn 1531)

ath_rate_sample: 1.2 (svn 1531)

ath_pci: 0.9.4.5 (svn 1531)

PCI: Enabling device 0000:00:06.0 (0000 -> 0002)

PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 0000:00:06.0. Please try using pci=biosirq.

wifi%d: request_irq failed

```

Following the above suggestion, I booted with acpi=off pci=biosirq. I get:

```

...

ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.

ath_hal: 0.9.16.16 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)

wlan: 0.8.4.2 (svn 1531)

ath_rate_sample: 1.2 (svn 1531)

ath_pci: 0.9.4.5 (svn 1531)

PCI: Enabling device 0000:00:06.0 (0000 -> 0002)

PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 0000:00:06.0.

wifi%d: request_irq failed

```

For completeness, I also tried pci=biosirq (without acpi=off): I get the same result as booting without any parameters.

So, it seems like a problem with card's IRQ. Indeed, lspci says:

```

# lspci -vvv

...

00:06.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Askey Computer Corp. Unknown device 7084

        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-

        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-

        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 0

        Region 0: Memory at 20000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]

        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)

                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=2 PME-

...

```

Under windows, the card has IRQ=19.

----------

## Monkeh

Does your BIOS have an option for plug and play OS support? If it does, turn it off (if it's on) and see what happens.

----------

## darkmanPPT

 *Monkeh wrote:*   

> Does your BIOS have an option for plug and play OS support? If it does, turn it off (if it's on) and see what happens.

 

Unfortunately there is no such option. It's a Packard Bell notebook, and the BIOS setup has just few options.

----------

## cyrillic

In order to get IRQs higher than 15, you want to build your kernel with APIC and IO-APIC enabled.

Maybe this will allow your wifi card to work.

----------

## darkmanPPT

 *cyrillic wrote:*   

> 
> 
> In order to get IRQs higher than 15, you want to build your kernel with APIC and IO-APIC enabled.
> 
> 

 

Thank you very much. Indeed, with this two options enebled, my wifi card works.  :Smile: 

But now... usb stopped working...  :Sad: 

In fact, dmesg reports errors like:

```

....

USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0

ACPI Error (uteval-0215): Return object type is incorrect [\_SB_.PCI0.ALKD._CRS] (Node c13ec9c0), AE_TYPE

ACPI Error (uteval-0221): Type returned from _CRS was incorrect: Integer, expected Btypes: 4 [20060127]

ACPI: Unable to set IRQ for PCI Interrupt Link [ALKD] (likely buggy ACPI BIOS).

Try pci=noacpi or acpi=off

...

```

Needless to say, I tried pci=noacpi, and then, the wifi card stops working...

----------

## Boinky

Hello there,

I think I recognise this problem: either USB worked or Wi-FI but not together. On my Fujitsu Siemens 7310 laptop, this has to do with a buggy ACPI BIOS.

I had to add "irqpoll acpi=force" to grub.conf:

```

...

kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.17-gentoo-r7 root=/dev/hda7 irqpoll acpi=force vga=791 screen=1024x768 splash=verbose,theme:emergence psmouse_noext=1

...

```

Now everything works OK (Wi-FI, USB mouse + Synaptics touchpad, 1280x800 resolution with modelines, DPMS, etc.) although sometimes KDE 3.5 still completely hangs.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> BIOS-e820: 000000001bff0000 - 000000001bffffc0 (ACPI data)
> 
>  BIOS-e820: 000000001bffffc0 - 000000001c000000 (ACPI NVS)
> ...

 

Hope this helps.

Cheers

----------

