Wireless not connecting...

[Mike Marchywka]

On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 11:58:28AM +0200, Liam Proven wrote:
> On Thu, 30 May 2019 at 19:58, Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Yes, same here.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Which is one reason I keep asking about the firmware.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Yes, we're aware of that. OTOH sometimes older drivers get bitrot, or
> firmware updates on either end cause problems.
> 
> (Which gives me another thought: as well as updating the main board
> firmware on the laptop, have you checked that the router's firmware is
> current, as well?)
> 
> > I will scrounge a USB stick
> 
> Really?
> 
> You said you just installed the machine in the original thread. How?
> 
> >  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.)
> 
> *Definitely* worth a try with another distro.
> 
> A few years ago I went through this exercise. Just before I got a
> contract with SUSE, I thought I should try out openSUSE for the first
> time in a few years. I used my then-more-than-decade-old testbed
> desktop: Core 2 Extreme, 8GB RAM, nVidia graphics, plus a Tenda USB
> wifi stick that was bought by my former startup specifically because
> it has native FOSS drivers.
> 
> openSUSE: no wifi; unrecognised device. There was a driver on
> software.opensuse.org but it's only installable from a openSUSE OS
> with an Internet connection. D'oh.
> Fedora: no wifi -- non-free firmware required for this device.
> Ubuntu: just worked.
> PC-BSD: wifi, what wifi?
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Then it wouldn't see the network at all, I think.
> 
> I was using wifi in the test above because I was 10+ metres from the
> nearest network port, in another room. I had to run a cable in the
> end.
> 
> My PowerMac G5 couldn't see the wifi either. I discovered this was
> because it needed an external wifi antenna and I did not get one with
> it. Replacements were US$75 + shipping.
> 
> I straightened out a paperclip and inserted in the central hole in the
> antenna socket, and lo, I got 4/5 bars and a fast link.

Did you insert an SWR meter to check impedance match? lol.
I have not bothered to look how these things are designed but I 
amazed that the Dell with external antenna was not just a stick but
this plastic square puck on the end of maybe almost a meter of wire.
So I can put the thing in a metal box to keep out dust and move antenna
out and only possibly give up blue tooth. 

In theory a bad antenna could damage a transmitter but in reality
most things today are probably designed better and I'm curious
if anyone knows what the output stages of the transmitter look like today
offhand. 

If you run one of the options on iwlist I think you get to see the SNR
etc of the access points that should give you some idea of quality.

What have you got against running wpa_supplicant from the command line?
IIRC that was not too difficult and if you get a stable SSID then
try dhclient. If not the messages may be helpful.  


> 
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mike marchywka
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marchywka at hotmail.com
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