Wireless stopped working on 9.10 (Intel WiFi Link 5100)

**Skender** · March 10th, 2010

I've got a Dell precision with Kubuntu 9.10. Wifi worked fine on that machine for months, but stopped working last week. I don't know what happened, but I recently did an "apt-get dist-upgrade". That might have something to do with it.

Does anyone have any suggestions that might point me towards a solution?
When I boot in Windows, wifi works fine.

Code:

tijl@Smaug:~$ sudo lshw -C network
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 19
       bus info: pci@0000:00:19.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 03
       serial: 00:24:e8:da:e6:90
       size: 100MB/s
       capacity: 1GB/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=1.0.2-k2 duplex=full firmware=1.7-7 ip=192.168.0.106 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100MB/s
       resources: irq:30 memory:f6fe0000-f6ffffff memory:f6fdb000-f6fdbfff ioport:efe0(size=32)
  *-network DISABLED
       description: Wireless interface
       product: Wireless WiFi Link 5100
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:0c:00.0
       logical name: wmaster0
       version: 00
       serial: 00:24:d6:2e:ae:7a
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlagn latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
       resources: irq:31 memory:f1ffe000-f1ffffff

Code:

tijl@Smaug:~$ lsmod | grep iwlagn
iwlagn                124896  0
iwlcore               133600  1 iwlagn
mac80211              210040  2 iwlagn,iwlcore
cfg80211              109144  3 iwlagn,iwlcore,mac80211

Code:

tijl@Smaug:~$ dmesg | grep iwlagn
[   25.271384] iwlagn: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, 1.3.27k
[   25.271386] iwlagn: Copyright(c) 2003-2009 Intel Corporation
[   25.271706] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[   25.271732] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   25.271808] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: Detected Intel Wireless WiFi Link 5100AGN REV=0x54
[   25.310856] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 24 802.11a channels
[   25.310932] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: irq 31 for MSI/MSI-X
[78266.652117] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: restoring config space at offset 0xf (was 0x100, writing 0x10a)
[78266.652159] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: restoring config space at offset 0x4 (was 0x4, writing 0xf1ffe004)
[78266.652169] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: restoring config space at offset 0x3 (was 0x0, writing 0x10)
[78266.652181] iwlagn 0000:0c:00.0: restoring config space at offset 0x1 (was 0x100000, writing 0x100106)

**Skender** · March 19th, 2010

It worked again for a few days, but it is broken again now. But the good news is: there appears to be some logic behind when it does and doesn't work. It seems like the wireless connection works when the power adapter is connected and the battery is fully charged, at the moment when I boot the laptop. Once booted with wireless support, I can unplug the power adapter and wireless will keep working. But once booted without wireless, charging the battery only helps to enable Wifi if I reboot the laptop. Does this make any sense to someone? Is this expected behavior that might be changed in some configuration file somewhere?

**croo** · March 19th, 2010

Doesn't make a lot of sense but I can confirm the same issue with my dell latitude e6400. I knew it sometimes worked but hadn't figured it was the full battery, nice one!

**keenerb** · April 1st, 2010

Originally Posted by croo

Doesn't make a lot of sense but I can confirm the same issue with my dell latitude e6400. I knew it sometimes worked but hadn't figured it was the full battery, nice one!

I have this same problem.

Is there a permenant fix?

Now that my battery's maximum capacity has dropped due to age my wireless will not initialize at ALL.

**Skender** · April 5th, 2010

I still have the same problem, but I'm no longer really convinced the battery level has that much to do with it. I never got it working without a fully charged battery, but I don't always get it to work when the battery is fully charged. I just reboot a few times and play with the switch a bit. And once it works, I leave the laptop powered on as long as possible. Is there really no one who has any suggestions that could help us figure out what the actual problem is?