Installing Linksys WMP600N Wireless-n PCI card

DaFoot · #1 30th May 2012, 06:12 PM

I've just installed a new PCI WiFi card to my box, but none of the gnome network tools seem to see it.
I believe it runs an rt2800 chipset from what I've found online, indeed I checked before buying that people have got it working under Linux.

From a bit of reading I've looked in a few places:

lspci
03:06.0 Network controller: Ralink corp. RT2800 802.11n PCI
... so hardware is there and physically connected ok

lsmod
[root@bigfoot ~]# lsmod | grep rt28*
rt2800pci 18477 0
rt2800lib 52393 1 rt2800pci
rt2x00pci 13995 1 rt2800pci
rt2x00lib 57912 3 rt2x00pci,rt2800lib,rt2800pci
eeprom_93cx6 13088 1 rt2800pci
mac80211 492420 3 rt2x00lib,rt2x00pci,rt2800lib
cfg80211 195764 2 mac80211,rt2x00lib
crc_ccitt 12573 1 rt2800lib
...seems to imply drivers are there, right? or am I misunderstanding what lsmod is about?

ifconfig:
[root@bigfoot ~]# ifconfig
eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 192.168.2.101 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.2.255
ether 6c:f0:49:08:51:8a txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 337361 bytes 182804948 (174.3 MiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 315727 bytes 26473860 (25.2 MiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
device interrupt 41 base 0x4000

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 16436
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10<host>
loop txqueuelen 0 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 18 bytes 1288 (1.2 KiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 18 bytes 1288 (1.2 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

virbr0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 192.168.122.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.122.255
ether 52:54:00:68:a8:72 txqueuelen 0 (Ethernet)
RX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

Any ideas how to go about getting this card recognised by the system?

---------- Post added at 03:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:07 PM ----------

Think I've found a clue in /avr/log/messages:

May 30 11:19:06 bigfoot kernel: [ 9.410920] rt2800pci 0000:03:06.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
May 30 11:19:06 bigfoot kernel: [ 9.421836] phy0 -> rt2800_init_eeprom: Error - Invalid RT chipset detected.
May 30 11:19:06 bigfoot kernel: [ 9.421845] phy0 -> rt2x00lib_probe_dev: Error - Failed to allocate device.
May 30 11:19:06 bigfoot kernel: [ 9.745468] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
May 30 11:19:06 bigfoot kernel: [ 9.745476] cfg80211: (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
May 30 11:19:06 bigfoot kernel: [ 9.745485] cfg80211: (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
May 30 11:19:06 bigfoot kernel: [ 9.745492] cfg80211: (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
May 30 11:19:06 bigfoot kernel: [ 9.745499] cfg80211: (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
May 30 11:19:06 bigfoot kernel: [ 9.745505] cfg80211: (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
May 30 11:19:06 bigfoot kernel: [ 9.745511] cfg80211: (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)

---------- Post added at 06:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:24 PM ----------

After more reading, I've installed driver from here:
http://www.ralinktech.com/en/04_supp...ort.php?sn=501

The firmware appears to be in place /usr/lib/firmware/rt2860.bin

The system appears to recognise that tere is a wireless card and will attempt scans for networks but fails. In /var/messages I now get errors like this:

May 30 18:10:50 bigfoot kernel: [ 995.461876] NICLoadFirmware: MCU is not ready
May 30 18:10:50 bigfoot kernel: [ 995.461879]
May 30 18:10:50 bigfoot kernel: [ 995.461880]
May 30 18:10:50 bigfoot kernel: [ 995.461883] ERROR!!! NICLoadFirmware failed, Status[=0x00000001]
May 30 18:10:50 bigfoot kernel: [ 995.461887] !!! rt28xx Initialized fail !!!

Which appears to suggest the firmware is incorrect/can't be read etc (please correct me if I'm misunderstanding!).
Changed permissions of firmware to be more permissive in case that help, but no.

DaFoot · #2 6th June 2012, 09:54 AM

Found some errors in logs to do withmemory address overlapping, so tried moving PCI slot of the network card and now I'm getting much better response from the card.

Wicd is now able to see the card and attempts to connect to the router (which shows the attempt in its logs so radio must now be working).

Now it seems it's wpa_supplicant that's letting me down:

Quote:

Originally Posted by /var/log/messages

Jun 6 09:50:06 bigfoot wicd[5035]: Failed to connect to wpa_supplicant - wpa_ctrl_open: No such file or directory

Piscium · #3 17th March 2013, 05:27 PM

Did the Linksys WMP600N Wireless-n PCI card work well in the end? I ask because this is one of the cards I am thinking of buying.

DaFoot · #4 17th March 2013, 08:00 PM

I've not played with it again recently.
Everything I've read seems to suggest it is compatible with Fedora after installing firmware, I failed with it.

Having said that, I have done a wipe/install of Fedora 18 to replace the OS that was upgraded numerous times with a clean OS.

I'll try again at some point.

Piscium · #5 17th March 2013, 09:12 PM

OK. thanks.

Anyway, I spent a couple more hours looking at this thing and it appears that wireless is quite iffy on Linux. So at the moment I am more inclined to buy a wireless router rather than a wireless adapter. This is a more expensive solution, but the advantage is that I do not need to worry about wireless drivers for Linux. It will be just a matter of stringing an Ethernet cable from my PC to the yet-to-be-bought router and then configuring both routers appropriately.