[ubuntu-uk] Toshiba Satellite Wireless Lock-down?

[pete smout]

On 11/07/13 09:22, pete smout wrote:
> On 11/07/13 00:12, James Tait wrote:
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>> Hi all,
>>
>> Recently my wife's laptop has been experiencing some wireless issues -
>> slow performance, drop-outs and the like.  We have numerous
>> wireless-enabled devices in the house and although we have the
>> occasional blip, none of the other devices seem to be affected to the
>> same extent, so I figured it was probably related to the laptop itself
>> and set about trying to figure out what the problem might be.
>>
>> The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite L450-188 running Ubuntu 12.04 with
>> the LTS backport kernel from Raring.  The original wireless card in it
>> is a Realtek RTL8191SE.  I tried replacing it with the Atheros-based
>> card from my son's EeePC, but although the card was apparently
>> recognised, and the ath5k module loaded, the card was disabled:
>>
>> jtait at mothership:~$ rfkill list
>> 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
>>          Soft blocked: no
>>          Hard blocked: yes
>>
>> rfkill unblock has no effect - no error, but the card remains hard
>> blocked.  The wireless key (Fn-F8) simply toggles the soft block, and
>> the laptop has no hardware switch that I can see.  There's a setting
>> in the BIOS that doesn't seem to have any effect.  So I picked up an
>> Intel IWL4965AGN card on eBay for a couple of quid and tried that, but
>> the result was the same:
>>
>> jtait at mothership:~$ rfkill list
>> 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
>>          Soft blocked: no
>>          Hard blocked: yes
>>
>> I've tried countless "solutions" on ubuntuforums and so on.  Is it
>> possible that Toshiba have decided to lock the laptop down to a
>> specific kind of wireless card?
>>
>> JT
>> - --
>> -
>> ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------
>> James Tait, BSc                        |
>> xmpp:jayteeuk at wyrddreams.org
>> Programmer and Free Software advocate  |        Tel: +44 (0)870 490 2407
>> -
>> ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------
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> Hi,
>
> My Acer laptop (intel Wifi card) suffered wifi probs on 12.04, never did
> get to the bottom of it, but upgrading to 13.04 solved it! I know this
> is not necessarily a solution but if you can pin down what has changed
> between the versions it might help (I have to admit once it 'fixed
> itself' I stopped looking!) if it helps ill post the output of some
> helpful commands below, and if you want any other info I would be happy
> to provide it.
> pete at petes-lappy:~$ lspci
> 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory
> Controller Hub (rev 03)
> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960
> Integrated Graphics Controller (primary) (rev 03)
> 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960
> Integrated Graphics Controller (secondary) (rev 03)
> 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI
> Controller #4 (rev 03)
> 00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI
> Controller #5 (rev 03)
> 00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI
> Controller #2 (rev 03)
> 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio
> Controller (rev 03)
> 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express
> Port 1 (rev 03)
> 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express
> Port 2 (rev 03)
> 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express
> Port 3 (rev 03)
> 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express
> Port 4 (rev 03)
> 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI
> Controller #1 (rev 03)
> 00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI
> Controller #2 (rev 03)
> 00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI
> Controller #3 (rev 03)
> 00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI
> Controller #1 (rev 03)
> 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
> 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HM (ICH8M) LPC Interface
> Controller (rev 03)
> 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE
> Controller (rev 03)
> 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E)
> SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 03)
> 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller
> (rev 03)
> 05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M
> Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
> 06:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
> [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)
> 07:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller
> (rev 05)
> 07:00.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro
> Host Adapter (rev 22)
> 07:00.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host
> Adapter (rev 12)
> 07:00.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12)
> pete at petes-lappy:~$ rfkill list
> 0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
>          Soft blocked: no
>          Hard blocked: no
> 1: phy0: Wireless LAN
>          Soft blocked: no
>          Hard blocked: no
>
> Hope this helps
>
> regards
>
> Pete S
>
>
>
>
Hi, again,

I have just found some interesting ideas here: 
http://www.linuxplained.com/how-to-fix-wireless-problems-in-ubuntu-1204-precise-pangolin/
(why I could not find these when I was suffering I have no idea!) but 
the one about disabling power saver on the wifi card makes sense to me!

Unfortunately my one remaining Precise box is ethernet-ed not wifi so I 
cannot test but seems logical.

Thanks for re-spiking my curiosity on this issue that I never solved ;)

Hope this helps

Pete