Bug 742716 - acer_wmi causes realtek 8188CE wireless to not work on thinkpad.
Summary: acer_wmi causes realtek 8188CE wireless to not work on thinkpad.
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE of bug 674353
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: kernel
Version: 16
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Kernel Maintainer List
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2011-10-02 01:59 UTC by Vivek Goyal
Modified: 2013-01-10 08:23 UTC (History)
10 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2012-02-28 23:29:51 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
acpidump output (250.24 KB, text/plain)
2011-10-05 22:57 UTC, Vivek Goyal
no flags Details

Description Vivek Goyal 2011-10-02 01:59:25 UTC
Description of problem:

I installed fedora 15 wireless did not work. Upgraded to fedora 16 and it still does not work.

I see following in dmesg

[   60.573816] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin
[   60.917037] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[   63.211554] rtl8192c_common: Loading firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin
[   63.554951] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready


Any attempt to bring up the wireless using NetworkManager does not succeed.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

Linux  3.1.0-0.rc8.git0.0.fc16.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Sep 28 01:31:14 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

How reproducible:


Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
  
Actual results:


Expected results:


Additional info:

Comment 1 Vivek Goyal 2011-10-02 02:00:41 UTC
lspci output.

#lspci -v

08:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8195
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
	I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
	Memory at d1d00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: rtl8192ce
	Kernel modules: rtl8192ce

#lspci -nn

08:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8195
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
	I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
	Memory at d1d00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: rtl8192ce
	Kernel modules: rtl8192ce

Comment 2 Vivek Goyal 2011-10-02 02:01:41 UTC
oops, wrong lspci -nn output above. pasting it below again,

08:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter [10ec:8176] (rev 01)

Comment 3 Larry Finger 2011-10-02 03:21:03 UTC
I have no idea why this is failing, but have you checked with rfkill? The command would be 'rfkill list'.

This driver works fine here with that same card.

Comment 4 Daniel Morante 2011-10-03 01:07:10 UTC
lspci -v output:

02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8181
	Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 16
	I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
	Memory at d0200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
	Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
	Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
	Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
	Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel
	Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 01-91-81-fe-ff-4c-e0-00
	Kernel modules: rtl8192ce

iwconfig output:

lo        no wireless extensions.

em2       no wireless extensions.

uname -a output:

3.1.0-0.rc8.git0.0.fc16.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Sep 28 01:31:14 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Comment 5 Larry Finger 2011-10-03 02:05:51 UTC
If you do not have a wlanX device, the usual cause is missing firmware. Please post the output of 'dmesg | grep firmware' and 'ls /lib/firmware/rtlwifi'.

Comment 6 Daniel Morante 2011-10-03 05:10:58 UTC
dmesg | grep firmware:

[   17.170292] rtl8192ce:rtl92c_init_sw_vars():<0-0> Failed to request firmware!
[   18.080022] atl1c 0000:06:00.0: vpd r/w failed.  This is likely a firmware bug on this device.  Contact the card vendor for a firmware update.

ls /lib/firmware/rtlwifi:

ls: cannot access /lib/firmware/rtlwifi: No such file or directory

Comment 7 Daniel Morante 2011-10-03 05:34:55 UTC
(In reply to comment #6)
> dmesg | grep firmware:
> 
> [   17.170292] rtl8192ce:rtl92c_init_sw_vars():<0-0> Failed to request
> firmware!
> [   18.080022] atl1c 0000:06:00.0: vpd r/w failed.  This is likely a firmware
> bug on this device.  Contact the card vendor for a firmware update.
> 
> ls /lib/firmware/rtlwifi:
> 
> ls: cannot access /lib/firmware/rtlwifi: No such file or directory

I was able to get the device recognized and working by downloading the firmware from Realtek and placing it in to /lib/firmware/rtlwifi directory and rebooting.  However, after enabling WIFI and removing the LAN cable the system locks up after 1 minute.  I have to power it off (holding down power button) and re-attach the LAN cable to be able to get back in.

Comment 8 Larry Finger 2011-10-03 15:17:58 UTC
You should have gotten the firmware from a Fedora package, not from the Realtek web site. To verify the firmware, please compute the md5sum for the file /lib/firmware/rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin. It should be 748944fbffd3b08b5b1929bb6c7fc537. If not, then get the firmware as noted above.

If the firmware has the correct signature, then once you bring the wireless up, immediately switch to the debugging console (CTRL-ALT-F10) and wait for the crash. What do you see on the screen? Take a photo and post it if possible.

Comment 9 Vivek Goyal 2011-10-03 23:06:38 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> I have no idea why this is failing, but have you checked with rfkill? The
> command would be 'rfkill list'.

Following is output of "rfkill list"

[~]$ rfkill list
0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

Not sure what is this acer-wireless entry. What does above mean?

Comment 10 Vivek Goyal 2011-10-03 23:08:50 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> lspci -v output:
> 
> 02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE
> 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)
>  Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8181
>  Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 16
>  I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
>  Memory at d0200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
>  Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
>  Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
>  Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
>  Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
>  Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel
>  Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 01-91-81-fe-ff-4c-e0-00
>  Kernel modules: rtl8192ce
> 
> iwconfig output:
> 
> lo        no wireless extensions.
> 
> em2       no wireless extensions.
> 
> uname -a output:
> 
> 3.1.0-0.rc8.git0.0.fc16.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Sep 28 01:31:14 UTC 2011 x86_64
> x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

For me following is iwconfig output.

[~]$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

p6p1      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off

Comment 11 Vivek Goyal 2011-10-03 23:12:20 UTC
(In reply to comment #8)
> You should have gotten the firmware from a Fedora package, not from the Realtek
> web site. To verify the firmware, please compute the md5sum for the file
> /lib/firmware/rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin. It should be
> 748944fbffd3b08b5b1929bb6c7fc537. If not, then get the firmware as noted above.

I have firmware present (from fedora 16 ) and seems to be right checksum. Still wireless does not seem to work. Is there any debug knob enabling which spits out some messages.

[rtlwifi]$ md5sum rtl8192cfw.bin 
748944fbffd3b08b5b1929bb6c7fc537  rtl8192cfw.bin

Comment 12 Daniel Morante 2011-10-03 23:31:44 UTC
Firmware is correct.
The debug screen does not show anything (completely black with a "_" cursor.  Is their something I need to enable?

Here is an interesting discovery...

If I boot into Windows 7 and use the wifi, then warm boot into Fedora 16, the machine does not crash and wifi works perfectly.

As soon as I do a cold boot into Fedora, the problem described occurs.

Comment 13 Larry Finger 2011-10-04 01:01:27 UTC
The acer-wireless is likely the code that handles to Fn operations. As long as that soft block is there, wireless will not work. Try 'sudo rfkill unblock all' to clear that.

I don't have an Acer laptop, and I do not have a clue as to why the wireless does not work when you cold boot Fedora, but unless there is an output on the C-A-F10 screen, there is not likely a crash. Have you waited for at least 2 or 3 minutes to see if a deadlock is detected.

Is this a single-cpu system?

Comment 14 Daniel Morante 2011-10-04 01:15:38 UTC
This is a Toshiba Satilite C655D-S512S. It comes preloaded with Windows 7 and has so far been one of the least Linux friendly laptops I've come across.

I've had few instances where if I place the LAN cable back and wait a few minutes, it comes back.  Other times, I've left it for hours with no change.

It's a single CPU single core, single thread AMD.

Not sure if this helps, but the system does not freeze up when I remove the LAN cable (wireless is always on) when I am on the console.  As soon as a switch to X11, it freezes after a few seconds (even if I go back to the console).

Comment 15 Daniel Morante 2011-10-04 01:23:18 UTC
Correction: Toshiba Satellite C655D-S5126

Comment 16 Larry Finger 2011-10-04 02:43:38 UTC
I'll try booting with maxcpu=1, but I have not had any deadlocks posted for rtl8192ce.

With NetworkManager, the wireless may be on, but there is no traffic as long as the wire is plugged in.

Comment 17 Vivek Goyal 2011-10-04 10:59:21 UTC
(In reply to comment #13)
> The acer-wireless is likely the code that handles to Fn operations. As long as
> that soft block is there, wireless will not work. Try 'sudo rfkill unblock all'
> to clear that.
> 
> I don't have an Acer laptop, and I do not have a clue as to why the wireless
> does not work when you cold boot Fedora, but unless there is an output on the
> C-A-F10 screen, there is not likely a crash. Have you waited for at least 2 or
> 3 minutes to see if a deadlock is detected.

hmm.. we seem to be mixing two problems reported by two people. anyway...

I have lenovo thinkpad edge E420 114155U 14"LED notebook. I did try rfkill unblock all, but still acer wireless seems to be soft blocked. There is no hardware switch in my laptop to enable/disable wireless.

[]# rfkill list
0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

Comment 18 Vivek Goyal 2011-10-05 01:32:38 UTC
Ok, I noticed that I had couple of acer modules. I removed "acer_wmi" and that got my wireless working. Bingo....

Will check now, what what this module doing and why it was blocking wireless functionality.

Comment 19 Larry Finger 2011-10-05 01:39:38 UTC
The XXX-wmi modules are for the Windows Management Interface. It is used to implement all of the fn functions on computers - mostly laptops. Why the Acer-specific module should be loaded for your machine is not known, but is was messing with the rfkill system.

Can this bug be closed?

Comment 20 Dave Jones 2011-10-05 02:07:32 UTC
well we should probably figure out either why that module is getting loaded if it shouldn't be, and/or finding out why it's interfering with the wireless.

Comment 21 Matthew Garrett 2011-10-05 02:12:24 UTC
It's correct for the acer module to be reloaded - it's actually an OEM interface that was first spotted on acers, so the module is somewhat misnamed.

Comment 22 Vivek Goyal 2011-10-05 22:56:16 UTC
Matthew asked to upload the output acpidump. That might help to figure out why acer_wmi is misbehaving. Attaching the acpidump output.

Comment 23 Vivek Goyal 2011-10-05 22:57:07 UTC
Created attachment 526593 [details]
acpidump output

Comment 24 Ivan Pesin 2011-12-25 18:22:55 UTC
Lenovo has issued a BIOS update which fixes this problem:


    BIOS: 1.20 / EC: 1.12
 - (Fix) Fix an issue of wireless network to load unexpected Acer driver.

I had the same problem with acer-wmi conflicting and BIOS update resolved the issue.

Comment 25 Larry Finger 2011-12-25 18:35:17 UTC
Thanks for reporting the availability of this BIOS update.

I will keep this in mind.

Comment 26 Gaurav Kumar 2011-12-28 11:50:31 UTC
Hi All,

It worked for my Thinkpad e420.
Only thing to keep in mind is the caution in BIOS upgrade.

Cheers!!

Comment 27 Josh Boyer 2012-02-28 23:29:51 UTC
This really sounds like bug 674353 for the acer_wmi/rfkill issue which was the original report.  I'm going to dupe for now.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 674353 ***


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