Wireless not connecting...

[Robert Heller]

At Thu, 30 May 2019 14:33:57 +0200 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 
> On Thu, 30 May 2019 at 12:47, Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:
> >
> > I don't have a 19.04 ISO (I would need to download it to a USB stick).
> 
> So what's the problem with that? It's not big by modern standards.
> 
> > Somehow I am thinking it is not a driver program, but more likely bad
> > hardware.
> 
> We do not yet have enough info to conclude that, I think.

Well all of my *past* experience with wireless NICs not working are usually of 
the sort where the O/S does not see the device because it does not have a 
driver that recognizes it.

In this case, there is a driver, rtl8188ee, that sees the device, a Realtex 
RT8188ee.  The device *sees* the AP and displays the SSID.  The AP sees and 
logs connection attempts.

Note: this is an *older* laptop (6 *years* old).  It is not bleeding edge 
hardware.  Actually the driver in question is actually available on my CentOS 
6 machine, with a *2.6.32* kernel and is in the 3.13.0 kernel of a Ubuntu 
14.04 VM I have.  It looks like this is anything other than a bleeding edge 
NIC with a still evolving driver.  I realize, that 99% of "Wireless is not 
working" problems are usually with some newbie with a fresh off the boat from 
China laptop with a NIC that was designed only the day before and the Linux 
kernel people are still scratching their collective heads trying to deduce 
what the designer design looks like.  This is most certainly not the case 
here.  I will scrounge a USB stick and download Ubuntu 19.04, but I doubt it 
will make the least difference. (I could also fire up 16.04 or even CentOS 
6.9 or CentOS 7.5, so see if that makes any difference -- I have the PXE boot 
kernels for these and I think I can fire the up in "rescue" mode and can try 
to fire up the wireless from there.)

The more I look at it, the more I am thinking that the wireless is broken, 
maybe the antenna is disconnected or broken or something like that.

> 

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