Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop - [SOLVED]

[dimmutal]

It seems that my laptop (Toshiba Tecra A4) simply doesn't like linux. I tried to install gutsy and the first problem i noticed was a black screen after rebooting. Obviously it is an ATI problem. I tried to enter in recovery mode and there! My graphics were ok! I thought...at least i can see things in my screen.

BUT

NO wireless, NO ethernet! The kernel recognizes both of my cards, but nothing seems to work! I tried installing the ipw2200 drivers, but that was so painful and didn't worked. I got several error messages.

Then i installed hardy and my ATI worked fine, so i didn't have to boot on recovery mode, but still no ethernet no wireless.

Any ideas? At least ay suggestions on how to install ipw2200? I searched the internet, downloaded the drivers but still. I'm now writing in a Windows session .

[toad]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop

Could you please post the output of

sudo ifconfig

[dimmutal]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop

mimis@laptop:~$ ifconfig
eth0   Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:12:f0:10:cc:5d
     UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
     RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
     TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
     collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
     RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
     Interrupt:11 Base address:0x2000 Memory:b000b000-b000bfff

lo    Link encap:Local Loopback
     inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
     UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
     RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
     TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
     collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
     RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

There isn't an eth1 device referring to my ethernet card since i have disabled it from bios. Also i want to mention that when i try to connect to my home wireless network, the process stops exactly at 28%. The pop up message of network manager during the connection try is Activation Stage: Configuring Device, so i guess my wireless card is not configured correctly. Also you can check this out:

mimis@laptop:~$ sudo dmesg | grep ipw2200
[  18.648736] ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.2kmprq
[  18.648740] ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[  18.666028] ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
[  20.034639] ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
[  20.157595] ipw2200: Detected geography ZZM (11 802.11bg channels, 0 802.11a channels)
[ 116.835698] ipw2200: Failed to send TX_POWER: Command timed out.
[ 117.081011] ipw2200: Failed to send TX_POWER: Command timed out.
[ 117.409260] ipw2200: Failed to send TX_POWER: Command timed out.
[ 117.659304] ipw2200: Failed to send TX_POWER: Command timed out.
[ 118.834203] ipw2200: Failed to send TX_POWER: Command timed out.
[ 118.834223] ipw2200: Unable to initialize device after 5 attempts.
[ 118.834227] ipw2200: Failed to up device

and

mimis@laptop:~$ sudo dmesg | grep ieee80211
[  18.113693] ieee80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL'
[  18.157611] ieee80211: 802.11 data/management/control stack, git-1.1.13
[  18.157616] ieee80211: Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Intel Corporation <jketreno@linux.intel.com>

Also checked out this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=757867 but didn't work...

[toad]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop

Strange, the driver has been in the kernel since dapper !? so you shouldn't have any problems on that front... Probably won't help, but you could try:

sudo dhclient eth0

My guess is a problem with knetworkmanager, which every now and then collides with /etc/network/interfaces (did you per chance edit this file?). It should read:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

If your's is any different, please make a backup copy and change it to the above and try again. Otherwise I am pretty stumped as my Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG worked out of the box.

Good luck...

[dimmutal]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop

After a fresh install with Gutsy the problem is still there. I got the following:

mimis@laptop:~$ sudo dhclient eth1
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.5
Copyright 2004-2006 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit [url]http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/[/url]

Listening on LPF/eth1/00:12:f0:10:cc:5d
Sending on  LPF/eth1/00:12:f0:10:cc:5d
Sending on  Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 9
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 9
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.

The /etc/network/interfaces is correct

[toad]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop

I googled "tecra a4 linux" and the card is supposed to be working fine if you use this driver and firmware: http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/

But again, the driver is in the kernel itself. Also, you stated that you had disabled eth1 (wlan) in the BIOS - did you remember to activate it again (I don't want to be presumptuous, just being careful )

I would enable both eth0 and eth1 (as I have on my IBM T41) in the BIOS, put in the live CD, plug the cable in and see whether you get onto the internet off cable. If so, unplug (still on the live CD) and do a right click on knetworkmanager. Is there an option for wireless?

[dimmutal]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop

Toad, i said that i made a fresh installation and after that wlan was assigned to eth1. previously eth1 was the ethernet card. I have disabled the ethernet card because it might be causing conflicts with the wireless. Not to mention that in some previous installations, i had the ethernet cable plugged in but it couldn't download security updates-obviously neither ethernet was working. I'll try to boot from the live CD and i'll post the results.

[toad]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop

I got the fresh installation bit - thanks.

The switching around of interfaces must be down to your BIOS settings during install.

[dimmutal]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop

I booted from the live CD with the ethernet card still disabled from bios. My wireless card is detected and when right clicking on the network manager i have an option to connect to a wireless network. I give the ESSID of my network and the WPA pswd, the process of connecting starts but the progress bar stops at 28% and after a while i get an error that it could not connect to my network.

When i get the mouse over my network in the network manager i see that it has detected my wireless card, but it assigns 0.0.0.0 to IP, subnet and gateway

[toad]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop

So the card is detected - that is a good thing What encryption have you got running on your router? Any other security measures such as MAC addresses?

As I stated before, enable all interfaces in the BIOS, use the live CD and see what happens.

I am off now until this evening. Good luck in the meantime!

[dimmutal]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop

I enabled the lan card and set

vga=791 pci=noacpi lapic irqpoll

in the menu.lst. Rebooted and the lan card worked (also fixed the problem with the slow boot time and black screen). I now upgrade my system and i'll check later for the wireless.

[dimmutal]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop [SOLVED]

FIXED!!

As i said i set the options

vga=791 pci=noacpi irqpoll lapic

in the menu.lst restarted entered in bios, enable the lan card booted to kubuntu and the lan card was detected!

Then upgrade, restart WITHOUT the ethernet cable connected enabled wireless and it just worked!!

Toad thanks for your replies...

[toad]

Re: Problems with Toshiba Tecra A4 laptop

Glad you got it working 8) Cool!

Also, could you edit the subject of your first post to include

 - SOLVED

That way others with the same problem can tell immediately whether this thread is worth reading.