RHEL 5.2 and IPW3945

[Jason Riker]

-----Original Message-----
From: redhat-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:redhat-list-bounces at redhat.com]
On Behalf Of Barry Brimer
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 9:41 PM
To: General Red Hat Linux discussion list
Subject: Re: RHEL 5.2 and IPW3945

> Hi, all.  I performed a fresh install of rhel 5.2 today and all was good.
> By this I mean that the wireless NIC worked.  Shortly after I did a 'yum
> update' and the wireless card stopped.  I don't understand what happened
and
> don't know where to start researching the issue.  Can someone offer help
> with this?

> The laptop is an HP dv2000 (2660se to be specific) with an Intel IPW3945
> NIC.

In order for the wireless NIC to work, the ipw3945d service must be 
started before the device can be used.  If chkconfig --list ipw3945d shows 
"5:Off" then the ipw3945d service is not set to start on bootup.  You can 
enable it to start on bootup by typing "chkconfig ipw3945d on" .. you can 
also start it by typing "service ipw3945d start".  This will make the 
driver load so that it can be used by your system.  I don't know how you 
are configuring your network (ifcfg-ethX scripts, NetworkManager, 
wpa_supplicant) so I can't provide too much other assistance, but use 
iwconfig to determine if you are connected to the intended network.  dmesg 
is also usually helpful in finding issues with wireless cards, if it is at 
the device level.

Hope this helps.
Barry

Barry,

Thanks for the info.  I checked the status of ipw3945d and it is set to
"5:On."  I am using NetworkManager.  The issue with NetworkManager is that
when I click the icon in the panel wireless is there, but is dimmed and not
selectable.  Right clicking on the icon shows "Enable Wireless" is selected.
Grepping eth1 and ipw3945 from dmesg provide the following:

eth1 - ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready

ipw - Radio Frequency Kill Switch is on:
      Detected geography ABG (11 802.11bg channels, 13 802.11a channels)

Please let me know if there's other information I should provide to help
with this.

Jason