[SOLVED] Trendnet TEW-423PI, Ubuntu 10.04, Can't See Wireless Networks

**ChampionSleeper** · 09-09-2010

I am new to linux and trying to get my Trendnet TEW-423PI C1.2R card to work. I am using ndiswrapper and the drivers that came with the card (on the cd).

Right now, the driver and hardware are recognized; but I can't "see" any wireless networks. I am not sure what is causing this issue, although the output of sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart: seemed to give errors (see bottom of post).

I have spent quite a bit of time googling, but didn't quite find an answer that pertained to my problem. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance-
Paul

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ w 2 GB RAM

ndiswrapper -l:

Code:

WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper, it will be ignored in a future release.
net8185 : driver installed
    device (10EC:8185) present

lspci:

Code:

04:07.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 20)

lsusb:

Code:

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 045e:00e1 Microsoft Corp. Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 Reciever
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

iwconfig wlan0:

Code:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Auto  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated  
          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:46 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3  
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

lsmod | grep ndis:

Code:

ndiswrapper           184677  0

dmesg | grep -e ndis -e wlan:

Code:

[   14.142254] ndiswrapper version 1.55 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=no)
[   15.084422] ndiswrapper: driver net8185 (Realtek,02/01/2007,5.1097.0201.2007) loaded
[   15.085004] ndiswrapper 0000:04:07.0: PCI INT A -> Link[LNKB] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
[   15.179365] ndiswrapper: using IRQ 18
[   17.336653] wlan0: ethernet device ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff using NDIS driver: net8185, version: 0x50449, NDIS version: 0x500, vendor: 'Realtek RTL8185 Wireless LAN (Mini-)PCI NIC                                     ', 10EC:8185.5.conf
[   17.777082] wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP; TKIP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK; AES/CCMP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK
[   17.778529] usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper
[   27.916021] wlan0: no IPv6 routers present

sudo lshw -C network:

Code:

*-network              
       description: Wireless interface
       product: RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 7
       bus info: pci"AT"0000:04:07.0                           <---Modified for URL restriction
physical id: 7
       bus info: pci"AT"0000:04:07.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 20  
serial: ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ndiswrapper+net8185 driverversion=1.55+Realtek,02/01/2007,5.1097.0 latency=64 link=no maxlatency=64 mingnt=32 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11g
       resources: irq:18 ioport:e800(size=256) memory:feb7fc00-feb7ffff

iwlist scan:

Code:

wlan0     No scan results

lsb_release -d

Code:

Description:    Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS

uname -mr:

Code:

2.6.32-24-generic i686

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart:

Code:

* Reconfiguring network interfaces...                                                                          
 /etc/network/interfaces:2: misplaced option
ifdown: couldn't read interfaces file "/etc/network/interfaces"
/etc/network/interfaces:2: misplaced option
ifup: couldn't read interfaces file "/etc/network/interfaces"

Btw, my interface file is as shown below:

Code:

#The Primary network interface
Iface wlan0 inet dhcp

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

**reed9** · 09-09-2010

Change this

Code:

#The Primary network interface
Iface wlan0 inet dhcp

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

to this

Code:

#The Primary network interface
#Iface wlan0 inet dhcp

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

if you are using wicd or networkmanager (the default in Ubuntu) to manage your networks.

EDIT: Note that it should also be a lower case i in Iface, otherwise.

This card should be supported out of the box with the rtl8180 module.

Please post the output of

Code:

lsmod

**ChampionSleeper** · 09-10-2010

Ok, I changed the network interface file and rebooted. No visible improvement. Here is the result of lsmod. As far as working out of the box goes, I think there are a couple of revisions for this card and maybe only some of them work right away. Thanks for your time. Also, I know some cards can be turned on and off. Is there a way to be sure mine is turned on?
-Paul

$ lsmod

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
nls_utf8                1069  1 
isofs                  29250  1 
snd_hda_codec_realtek   203310  1 
binfmt_misc             6587  1 
fbcon                  35102  71 
tileblit                2031  1 fbcon
font                    7557  1 fbcon
bitblit                 4707  1 fbcon
softcursor              1189  1 bitblit
vga16fb                11385  0 
vgastate                8961  1 vga16fb
ppdev                   5259  0 
lp                      7028  0 
parport                32635  2 ppdev,lp
snd_hda_intel          21941  2 
snd_hda_codec          74201  2 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep               5412  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm_oss            35308  0 
snd_mixer_oss          13746  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                70662  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy           1338  0 
snd_seq_oss            26726  0 
snd_seq_midi            4557  0 
snd_rawmidi            19056  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event      6003  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                47263  6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
nouveau               467048  2 
snd_timer              19098  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device          5700  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
ttm                    49943  1 nouveau
drm_kms_helper         29297  1 nouveau
snd                    54148  16 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
drm                   162377  4 nouveau,ttm,drm_kms_helper
ndiswrapper           184677  0 
soundcore               6620  1 snd
k8temp                  3024  0 
snd_page_alloc          7076  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
agpgart                31724  2 ttm,drm
i2c_algo_bit            5028  1 nouveau
i2c_nforce2             5199  0 
usbhid                 36110  0 
hid                    67032  1 usbhid
pata_amd                8766  1 
sata_nv                19440  2 
forcedeth              49556  0

**reed9** · 09-10-2010

You may be right about different revisions of the card, but the important bit is to look at the pciid, in this case 10EC:8185.

Let's ditch ndiswrapper for a moment and see if the native driver works.

Code:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper
sudo modprobe rtl8180
sudo iwconfig wlan0 up
sudo iwlist wlan0 scan

Does the last output a list of available networks?

Most the time you can check if the wireless is disabled via a hardware or software kill switch by doing

Code:

cat /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill*/state

The output will be a number
0 = software disabled
1 = on
2 = hardware disabled

**ChampionSleeper** · 09-10-2010

OK, so when I tried to ditch ndiswrapper and use rtl8180 again I was getting fatal errors about loading the module. At this point I decided it was time to start from scratch, so I just reinstalled ubuntu again. So now rtl8180 loads by default, but network manager did not create a default wireless network, ie wlan0. So, I don't think there is anything to scan. At this point, based on the ubuntu wifi troubleshooting guide, I think that my wireless card is not communicating with the kernel. I could create a wireless connection called wlan0 in network manager but the device does not seem to be associated to the connection.
I tried your code for checking the on/off status of the card, but it did not seem to apply as the state file did not exist. I think the card may not have an on/off state.

So, lshw -C network gives me

Code:

 *-network               
       description: Ethernet controller
       product: RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 7
       bus info: pci@0000:04:07.0
       version: 20
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm cap_list
       configuration: driver=rtl8180 latency=64 maxlatency=64 mingnt=32
       resources: irq:19 ioport:e800(size=256) memory:feb7fc00-feb7ffff

But iwconfig give me:

Code:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

Eth0 is the wired connection.
So, I think it is odd that the wireless card shows up in lshw -c network, but does not show up in iwconfig.

I also tried using WICD instead of network manager, but no luck.

**reed9** · 09-10-2010

Hmm, well, the pciid I pulled from ndiswrapper up there, so maybe that isn't so accurate. Let's double check.

Post the output of

Code:

lspci -vnn

Also do

Code:

dmesg > dmesg.txt

This will create a text file in your current working directory with the output of dmesg. Post the contents of the file.

**PsuedoName** · 09-11-2010

I had the same flakey card on a Karmic machine with ndiswrapper.

Before I plugged in the network card, I installed Karmic, and blacklisted native rtl818x drivers first because the driver caused a kernel panic on startup on my machine (described in this bug report - bugs.launchpad net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/368679). I plugged in the card and installed ndiswrapper after. I used ifconfig to check if card is enabled. If it wasn't, I used ifconfig wlan0 up. Networks should be detected then using iwlist wlan0 scanning.

My problems began when the card tried to associate with some routers with WPA or WPA2 encryption. Most of the time, I would timeout even though I configured wpa_supplicant and interfaces files. After days of frustration and only being able to connect to unencrypted and WEP networks, I reverted back to Interpid.

**ChampionSleeper** · 09-13-2010

Well, I finally was able to get the card working this weekend. After a couple attempts, I decided to try Ndiswrapper and the XP drivers again. For some reason, this time it worked without issues. I blacklisted rtl8180 before installing Ndsiwrapper (maybe that helped), and then installed Ndiswrapper and the XP drivers. I had to restart a couple of times, and then I was able to see my network. Sometimes it takes a few tries to connect, but it seems to be working. Thanks for all your help, reed.

Thread Tools

Display

[SOLVED] Trendnet TEW-423PI, Ubuntu 10.04, Can't See Wireless Networks

Posting Permissions