Talk:Ipw2200

The ipw2000 drivers loads clean on my t42 and the interface eth1 is accessible. However, the wireless-lan LED does not light and i cant connect. Havent figured out what this is.

Debian sid / lenny firmware load problem

A recent (08/08) debian sid update led to this error :

 ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.0kmprq
 ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
 ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:04:02.0[A] -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 23
 ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
 ipw2200: ipw2200-bss.fw request_firmware failed: Reason -2
 ipw2200: Unable to load firmware: -2
 ipw2200: failed to register network device
 ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:04:02.0 disabled

I tried to reinstall the latest firmware (3.0) into /lib/firmware without success.

Unpacking the firmware archive into /lib/modules solved the problem.

I am not sure of the definitive correct place for ipw2200 firmware in debian sid, but this may help others as I did not find a lot of places on the net mentioning this. Do not hesitate to add details or modify this entry if you know more.

--VincentP 00:02, 7 August 2008 (CEST)

Radio Switch utility needed

I have the same problem. WiFi adapter must be turned on before using. In Windows software utility is executed by Fn+F5 keys. This utility turns WiFi and/or Bluetooth adpters on/off. In Linux Fn+F5 controls only Bluetooth adapter. Unfortunately I can not find switch utility yet (10 Sep 2005).

---

Try using the usual hotkey hooks to activate the power management features described in the article. --Thinker 04:37, 18 Nov 2005 (CET)

---

Reliability problems

On a T43p ipw2200 v1.0.6 works well 95% of the time with WPA using wpa_supplicant. However it seemingly randomly causes trouble and refuses to connect (it is not the router, as non-linux devices work.) It always recovers with a killall wpa_supplicant, unloading the ipw2200 and ieee80211 modules, and reloading everything (you can even write a "netreset" script to do this for you automatically, as I have done.)

It's frustrating, because this is so un-"linux-like" to have intermittent unreliability. Usually things work 100% or 0% of the time on my linux system. Note, I have not used the 2.6.15-rc kernel version nor 1.0.8 with WPA yet, this problem might be fixed. Can anybody verify? --Gsmenden

Same problem here with a Linksys router and WPA, no problem with other routers ... I'll try the new kernel and ipw2200--Xoby 18:35, 15 January 2006 (CET)

I've tried and still had problems, I also edited my wpa_supplicant file to:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=0
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1
### Associate with any open access point
###  Scans/ESSID changes can be done with wpa_cli
network={
       ssid="myssid"
       psk="mypass"
       priority=1
       proto=WPA
       key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
       pairwise=TKIP CCMP
}

And successfully transfered more than 5 Gb without any problem--Xoby 11:16, 19 January 2006 (CET)

Sudden breakage...

Have any of you had recent problems while running debian sid with ipw2200-1.0.10 and ieee80211-1.1.9 on a t43p? All of a sudden since 2d ago my wireless initialization gives the following error report:

   Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
       SET failed on device eth1 ; No such device.
   Error for wireless request "Set ESSID" (8B1A) :
       SET failed on device eth1 ; No such device.
   SIOCSIFADDR: No such device
   eth1: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
   SIOCSIFNETMASK: No such device
   eth1: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device

I can load the modules without complaint, but can not use the device. I have tried everything obvious to fix it: reinstalling via module-assistant the ipw2200 and ieee80211 drivers, downgrading to old versions, manually installing from sources without module-assistant, disabling then re-enabling the adapter in the BIOS, etc. I have the 2.3 and 2.4 version firmware in the appropriate directory.

I was ready to dismiss this as a hardware problem, but when I boot up knoppix or suse-live-dvd, the wireless works consistently!  ??? Odd that this suddenly break - I can not think of anything that triggered this, but I do "apt-get upgrade" approximately daily.

I'm running 2.6.14.6, but my 2.6.15.1 build also suddenly displays identical behavior... gsmenden 11:30, 30 January 2006 (EST)

---

Bizarre. Delving through the ipw2200-devel archives reveals several users having similar non-detection issues due to trouble loading the firmware. In the /etc/hotplug area one person solved a similar issue by removing firmware.agent file, which did not work for me.

I decided to completely remove the hotplug system

apt-get remove --purge hotplug

followed by re-apt-getting hotplug. Voila, everything works as before. Sometimes Debian sid is as flaky as a baklava - an ill-timed "apt-get upgrade" can effectively destroy your system when running unstable, yet "stable" is far, far too behind the times for me...  :(

gsmenden 13:55, 30 January 2006 (EST)

Enhanced power saving with set_power 5

Using "set_power 5" instead of "set_power 7" reduces power consumption in idle times (i.e. no network traffic) by about 1.5 watts on my T43, which is pretty good if you just want to keep your irc or im client running. Does anyone have a clue why that happens? Are there any drawbacks to this? --B.Steinbrink (23:55, 1 December 2006 (CET))

Odd. The only difference between 7 (which is the same as 3, BTW), and 5 is the timeouts; on an idle connection, the radio will be turned off most of the time with both of these. And 1.5W is roughly the full difference between radio on and radio off. Maybe you have some regular event kicking in at just the right intervals to make a difference. --Thinker 00:43, 2 December 2006 (CET)

Yeah, I saw 7 being the same as 3, that's why I tried 5. But with the first bigger download I noticed that my connection speed dropped along with the power consumption. I only got 64kbit/s out of the 1MBit/s the DSL line I'm currently using can shuffle around, switching back to 7 made the speed jump up to about 950kbit/s again. So that regular event kicking in was pretty important it seems ;) --B.Steinbrink 01:55, 2 December 2006 (CET)

Correct!? path?

Why /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware is better than /lib/firmware? Hotplug is deprecated, so is /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware. --Zhenech 09:19, 8 February 2007 (CET)

I have no idea, as firmware in /usr will be unavailable during early boot if /usr is a separate partition... in fact, I'd say it was a Bad Idea to use /usr/<anything>/firmware in the first place.

I have added /lib/firmware back. Anyone that can actually read and follow instructions, either Intel's or the ones in the rest of the page, won't need that comment, anyway. --hmh 12:36, 8 February 2007 (CET)