[SOLVED] PCI + RaLink problem

Danger7789 · n00b Joined: 18 Feb 2008 Posts: 12

So i bought a Linksys WMP54G wireless card for my desktop because the current one built into the motherboard has been dieing on both windows and linux, but this new card has been causing more confusion because of the following problem.

lspci does NOT report the card correctly (see output commands below). what could be causing this? when i connected the device a new interface was created called eth1, as apposed to what most people get ra0. and eth1 show as having no wireless extensions.

according to dmesg the eth1 interface is using sky2 as the kernel driver and not the relevant ralink drivers ... plus if i do a verbose output of lspci i find that the device using sky2 is listed but it's information is incorrect ...

a few more things to note about my system. I'm running a 2.6.26-gentoo-r1 kernel. the pci-slot is not malfunctioning (i've tried two slots, and both work as my sound cards works fine in them). i also had trouble trying to get the device to work on windows, it would not install drivers for it automatically so i installed the ones from the CD but windows refuses to use the drivers for the card ... (might also be miss identifying it)

a few things i've tried ... compiling all ralink entries into the kernel did not help. removing entries from the kernel that make the onboard wireless work also did not help (thought maybe there is collision of some kind ...?). i have not tried the card in another computer, but that's next on the list of things to try ....

so basically at this point i believe the card is messed up and i'll be returning it next week unless someone comes up with a brilliant solution.

thanks for any ideas,
Patrik

username234 · Guru Joined: 09 May 2007 Posts: 332

First run update-pciids as root (or use sudo) This will correct any missing / outdated / wrong text strings with lspci.

Also could you verify that your mainboard is the Asus P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP?
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Danger7789 · n00b Joined: 18 Feb 2008 Posts: 12

Seems i forgot to post my motherboard information. Yes, you'd be correct, i have a Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP edition motherboard. any other information i forgot to include?

update-pciids has had no effect on any of the data i posted above. i did a system reboot just to make sure it didn't need one, still nothing. good idea though, i forgot about that command.

Patrik

eccerr0r · Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 6:54 pm Post subject:

I had a Tekram P6B40D (or something like that) Dual Slot-1 440BX motherboard. It does _NOT_ like PCI2.2 and newer cards that depend on 3.3V available on the bus, and all these PCI cards will not even enumerate (thus won't even show up in lspci). Unfortunately I have no solution to this other than buying a new motherboard, which is (sort of) what I did.

Failed cards in my Tekram Dual slot-1 board:
A D-Link DWL620 wireless card
A noname Realtek 8169 Gbit ethernet card

So far this is the only board I have used, short of some really ancient P5 boards that have issues with PCI2.2 boards. Even a 440LX board I have can use them. Check your board for PCI compliance.

(Granted a new board like the P5B should be well past the issue, but may want to make sure... or possibly swap motherboards. Does BIOS report the card upon startup?) Make sure the card is plugged in correctly?

(woah... is this really my 1000th non OTW post?)
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username234 · Guru Joined: 09 May 2007 Posts: 332

some other things to try:

check for bios updates for your mainboard (note: this is risky, so get local help if you're uneasy about upgrading the bios)
check for the wifi card using lshw it show more than lspci, and it might find it.
if there is room, try the wifi card in PCI slot 1
try the card in another computer if it fails in there, then it's probably bad like you suspected.

and in clarification:

Your eth1 controller is your secondary ethernet controller (your board has two), so if it appeared recently I'd say it somehow got enabled in your bios, and even if you get the card working it may come up as wlan1 instead of Ra0, I'm not sure what name the kernel RT61 drivers assign the card to(never used them).
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eccerr0r · Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 9:57 am Post subject:

I think the in-kernel driver reports as ethX for ralink if I recall correctly (the board isn't installed at the moment), but, there's no wireless extensions visible when iwconfig is run--something strange going on here. But either way, it's not a good sign when lspci doesn't show the card, it should come up with a ralink device -- mine certainly does, even if the firmware is not loaded yet.

Might also want to check BIOS options for PCI. Double check the board listing if you have Award or AMI bios, I think both of these show a list of all your cards when you start up).

My RaLink card is Belkin-branded...
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Danger7789 · n00b Joined: 18 Feb 2008 Posts: 12

well it's working now! turns out it was just loss ... even though i initially tried it in tow different ports before posting this. gah i feel silly. and now to clarify a few things for anyone that might read this in the future ....

the device was NOT being miss identified. it turns out that like username234 said the computer just happened to start detecting my motherboards secondary ethernet controller (cable/ not wi-fi). and this is the device that started to show up in lspci and such.

and yes when i got it to work it showed up as wlan1. i was going to change everything to wlan1 but decided to swap the devices in the /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules to make things easier. plus i've got the old wireless compiled as a module just in case ...

another road block i can across was getting a "SIOCSIFFLAGS: File not found". looking at dmesg i so it wanted rt2561s.bin firmware so i downloaded the driver package from the ralink site and copied the file from there package to /lib/firmware and everything works wonderfully now.

thanks for the ideas,
Danger