Problems with Wireless and Ethernet on new Thinkpad

[Chopstick]

Hi,
I just got a new Thinkpad T540p; the wifi card is an Intel Wireless 7265.
I will start with some background, as that may be important.

The installation with encrypted LVM was not straight forward (kept crashing) and I had to use the server installer for ubuntu and install the kubuntu desktop manually.
During the server installation (a relatively simple text itnerface) the ethernet card was not detected (or at least that's what it said), but the installation completed from the USB stick. Upon reboot I didn't have any network connection but I was able to get ethernet by adding

auto eth0
iface eth inet dhcp

to the file /etc/network/interfaces and starting the eth0 manually

sudo ifup eth0

. Then I installed the kubuntu desktop.

That was in my lab; then I went home and connected it to the LAN there, but it didn't recognize the connection. It eventually worked after I removed the eth0 entry from /etc/network/interfaces and rebooted with the cable plugged in.

And this is the first problem: the ethernet only works if it was plugged in before boot, otherwise the system can't seem to establish a connection. Similarly, if the computer wakes up from sleep and the cable is not already plugged in, it wont establish a connection.

What is even weirder, I noticed that if the laptop awakes from sleep on batteries (i.e. without AC - a very common situation), the ethernet wont work either, even if it is plugged in before waking the computer... and if the power cord is unplugged less than a few seconds before sleeping it is as if it was unplugged while the computer was sleeping, i.e. the ethernet wont work. Very strange...

The second problem is that the wireless does not connect to my department network (eventhough the configuration is exactly as before, on my old laptop, which can connect). Initially I could not even connect to private networks, but after downgrading the firmware, I was able to connect to a neighbour's network. But the "enterprise-style" wifi in my department still doesn't work.

Since there were problems detecting the ethernet initially and it is still behaving strangely, and the problems with the wireless are drivign me nuts, I figured the first thing I should do is reinstall everything related to networking... Can anyone give me some guidance on that?

Thanks!

[Chopstick]

This might be useful:

Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection I217-LM (rev 04)
Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 (rev 83)

Also, some output from dmesg | grep -i wifi:

$ dmesg | grep -i wifi
[   36.524095] Intel(R) Wireless WiFi driver for Linux, in-tree:
[   36.524589] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: irq 46 for MSI/MSI-X
[   36.531790] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2
[   36.531794] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: Falling back to user helper
[   36.652459] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: loaded firmware version 22.1.7.0 op_mode iwlmvm
[   36.679993] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 7260, REV=0x144
[   36.680064] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: L1 Enabled; Disabling L0S
[   36.680299] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: L1 Enabled; Disabling L0S
[   37.313633] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: L1 Enabled; Disabling L0S
[   37.313872] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: L1 Enabled; Disabling L0S

My wireless firmware is version 22.1.7.0; the current firmware version is 22.24.8.0.

[Chopstick]

I should also add that I did try booting from a USB key with the kubuntu installer and in that case the wire connection works fine, but the wireless has the same problem as with the most recent firmware, i.e. it keeps promting me for a password, eventhough I already entered the (correct) password, and it never connects.

[Chopstick]

This is a bit late now, but I have been travelling for the last four weeks. I got the issue mostly fixed just before I left but had no time to post. Still, in case someone reads this, here is what I did:

After some googling and talking to people, I concluded that the problem was caused by a firmware bug and I decided to look for a newer firmware. What made me hesitate at first was that newer firmware was only available for the 3.14 kernel and I was on 3.13 at that time (still default for kubuntu 14.04, I think). But eventually I installed the 3.14 kernel and installed the new firmware. Now it mostly works; there are still occasional hic-ups, but they are usually resolved by briefly putting the computer to sleep or, if that fails, rebooting. Since I have an SSD that's reasonably fast and the wireless is sufficiently usable for my purpose.

The .deb files for different kernel versions for ubuntu are available here:
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
(You need one of each: linux-headers-3.14.*_all.deb, linux-headers-3.14.19-031419-generic_3.14.*_amd64.deb, linux-image-3.14.22-031422-generic_3.14.*_amd64.deb; assuming a 64bt system; low-latency is not necessary for home systems)
The new kernel can be installed with dpkg (and reboot):

sudo dpkg --install linux-*-3.14.*.deb

I downloaded the new firmware from here:
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/...25.222.9.0.tgz
You can install it simply by putting the file into the /lib/firmware folder and rebooting; you can also reload the module using this command (without rebooting):

sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi && sudo modprobe iwlwifi --first-time

Now you should find something like that in the output of dmesg:

$ dmesg | grep iwlwifi
[32355.377420] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: irq 46 for MSI/MSI-X
[32355.377903] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: loaded firmware version 23.214.9.0 op_mode iwlmvm
[32355.389858] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 7260, REV=0x144
[32355.389934] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: L1 Enabled; Disabling L0S
[32355.390197] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: L1 Enabled; Disabling L0S

Maybe this will help someone at some point...

Chopstick

@Teunis: I had the same experience when I first came to kubuntu in 2008/9, and also resorted to WICD for some time. Naturally I tried that, but it didn't make a difference.