Wireless networking issue: the adapter working fine in linux, but not in windows
2014-04
Truthseeker Rangwan
My laptop is ACER aspire V5-573G and is currently has a strange wi-fi issue. The laptop has dual-boot Windows 8.1 (64-bit)/Linux mint 16 (xfce,64-bit).
On the windows side, the wireless card is almost completely unusable as it could only connects to the mobile hotspot and is unable to connect to any other wireless router except the university wifi.
The error will always say "Can't connect to this network" no matter what Wi-Fi network and how many attempts. I also checked the event viewer and it will return mainly two reasons: one is "The specific network is not available" and one another is "The driver disconnected while associating"
After some time of trial-and-error I tried to connect the computer with Ethernet, it worked and it also get the Wi-Fi to work as well. However, the speed is almost capped at 64kbit/s and almost always stop functioning shortly afterwards. In addition, when the adapter is disabled, it won't connect again.
From the Linux side, it works without any problem. So, this makes me highly doubt it is the adapter's damage or not (I had my laptop bag dropped once while it was sleeping.), but if it is, it shouldn't have worked in Linux, mobile hotspot or university's Wi-Fi either.
So, what I have had in mind
- Some configuration file in the windows regarding wireless network is messed up. (Most likely, but I don't know how to fix without refreshing windows, which means all my programs will be wiped clean)
- The adapter is indeed damaged. (But it does not explain how it was working in some networks I stated earlier)
Could someone enlighten me over this mystery?
Questioner
Does anybody know how to get the Atheros ar242x wireless adapter working under Debian Linux (5.0.2 and/or 5.0.3)? My Debian live CDs and install CDs both don't like this card at all.
Curisouly, it seems to work on other, Debian-based, Linuxes.
Is this a free/non-free Driver issue? I know Debian gets mardy about that.
Although for what it's worth, the Live CD doesn't seem to detect my wired LAN connection either...
Specifically this is on a Samsung R610 laptop (some version of which seem to have an intel wireless adapter - this one definitely doesn't!)
I've tried all sorts of things but obviously on a live CD installing software is limited. I've also tinkerering with network config files and kernel modules etc but to no avail.
John T
The MadWifi driver should work.
- Download the latest version
- Extract it:
$tar xzvf madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz
- Compile it:
$cd madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r4016-20090429 $make
- Install as root:
$sudo make install
- Load the module:
$modprobe ath_pci
- Configure it to load at bootup:
$echo "ath_pci" >> /etc/modules
You should be good to go.