When booting up the messages reported failure to load something to do with the
wireless cards. It went by too fast and too small for me to read it
properly. And I have tried one modification of the /e/n/i file, but if the
drivers haven't loaded, it won't do any good.
Original message.
The built in wireless on the Dell Inspiron 9300 suddenly stopped working.
Having poked around a bit with wicd and network-manager (not simultaneously),
I am checking whether the problem is sudden hardware failure. I plugged in a
USB network card.
Here is what I get:
sarah@debian-wheezy:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0b05:17ab ASUSTek Computer, Inc. USB-N13 802.11n
Network Adapter (rev. B1) [Realtek RTL8192CU]
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 1c4f:0003 SiGma Micro HID controller
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 1631:5002 Good Way Technology
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 1631:5400 Good Way Technology
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
sarah@debian-wheezy:~$
sarah@debian-wheezy:~$ grep wifi /proc/modules
rtlwifi 45511 2 rtl8192cu,rtl_usb, Live 0xf829b000
mac80211 425575 3 rtl8192cu,rtl_usb,rtlwifi, Live 0xf8a02000
cfg80211 350041 4 rtlwifi,mac80211,ipw2200,libipw, Live 0xf8313000
sarah@debian-wheezy:~$
But:
sarah@debian-wheezy:~$ /sbin/ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:22:e7:6f:21
inet addr:192.168.0.9 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::214:22ff:fee7:6f21/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:679 errors:0 dropped:3 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:522 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:100380 (98.0 KiB) TX bytes:72694 (70.9 KiB)
Interrupt:18
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:16:6f:00:3a:b3
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:7 errors:17 dropped:17 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:79 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:945 (945.0 B) TX bytes:14187 (13.8 KiB)
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:84 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:84 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:22493 (21.9 KiB) TX bytes:22493 (21.9 KiB)
sarah@debian-wheezy:~$
Where eth1 is the on-board card.
Where next?
With the on-board wifi card, I have tried DHCP and static IP. It reports
failure at the authentication stage. I have checked and rechecked both the
MAC address on the router and the passphrase entered in the laptop. Both are
fine. As I say, it failed suddenly, at the client's house, and she does not
use MAC address identification. The wireless worked immediately after the
upgrade. I have tried Fn-F2.
As I say, where next.
I have no objection to e/n/i, in fact I prefer it, but this is a laptop. It
must be able to roam. So I have no idea where to start!
Lisi
