ath11k module not loading in MX21 ahs

[bmertz]

Hello,

I have a Razer Blade 14 w/Ryzen 6900X APU and Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU. The wireless card is a Qualcomm/Intel that should have wifi natively enabled in kernel 5.16, but it fails to load on startup, meaning I don't have any wifi. I installed MX 21 ahs without an internet connection, thinking I just needed to install the firmware-iwlwifi package and that would fix the issue. However, I get the same message upon startup:

ath11k_pci 0000:02:00.0: Unsupported WCN6855 SOC hardware version: 18 17

It appears there are a couple of potential fixes:
https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/li ... icinc.com/
This would require a recompile of the kernel with a symlink between the hw2.0 and hw2.1 versions.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1954938

This would require an upgrade to the firmware-iwlwifi package. I went this second route, pulling the most recent firmware source from wireless.wiki.kernel.org and copied over to the appropriate locations in /usr/lib/firmware, but this did not fix the problem. I also came across a post that suggested removing/renaming the most recent iwlwifi.ucode and iwlwifi.pnvm files:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=212371

But this did not work as well. lspci shows that MX is detecting my card, but ifconfig -a only brings up the lo interface.

I'm able to bring up the iwlwifi module, but even after that, no interface shows up (still lo). Any help would be appreciated, as I'd much rather be running off of MX rather than Windows.

[dolphin_oracle]

you can ignore the iwlwifi stuff. that is for intel parts, not atheros.

I would have though the ath11k would work OOTB with the ahs kernel.

@Stevo is it worth checking for an updated firmware package? I'm thinking its newer than the firmware we currently have.

in the meantime, perhaps the OP could post their Quick-system-info please.

[bmertz]

DO, thanks for the quick response -- apologies if I was chasing a red herring with the iwlwifi. For some reason I thought I needed that firmware loaded. Here's some of the system information that I can tell you -- let me know what other info you need, I'll have to type it from my other working linux laptop since I don't have an internet connection from the laptop with MX Linux.

Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX w/Radeon graphics

lspci -v | grep -A5 Qualcomm:
02:00.0 Netowrk controller [0280]: Qualcomm Device [17cb:1103] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Lite-On communication Inc Device [11ad:a82d]

Flags: fast devsel, IOMMU group 13
Memory at fc200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable)
Capabilities: <access denied> (can re-run this in sudo if you need me to)
Kernel modules: ath11k_pci, wl

ip a:
1: lo:
(no other devices listed)

lsmod | grep ath11k:
ath11k_pci 28672 0
ath11k 352256 1 ath11k_pci
qmi_helpers 32768 1 ath11k
mac80211 1077248 1 ath11k
cgf80211 1052672 3 wl,ath11k, mac80211
mhi 90112 1 ath11k_pci

uname -r: 5.16.0-5mx-amd64

[dolphin_oracle]

Code: Select all

rfkill list all

[bmertz]

$ rfkill list all:
0: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard block: no

So it looks like my wireless card is not being detected, only bluetooth? That's makes sense, as bluetooth is on when I log in.

[Adrian]

I think the firmware for ath11k is in firmware-atheros...

[bmertz]

Wish that was the easy answer -- I already have the firmware-atheros package installed.

[Helen-Earth]

One thing you could try is restricting ath11k to 2.4hz from advanced network configuration. Remove 5hz. Reboot

If you want check it is working. dmesg | grep ath11k

Hope this helps.

[bmertz]

Helen, not sure how I can do this if the wifi module isn't loading -- network manager isn't giving me an option to modify the ath11k settings because it is not detected.

dmesg | grep ath11k:
[ 1.867710] ath11k_pci 0000:02:00.0: Unsupported WCN6855 SOC hardware version: 18 17
[ 1.867731] ath11k_pci: probe of 0000:02:00.0 failed with error -95

[bmertz]

Never got a resolution to this issue -- turns out the firmware for the ath11k card is not readily available, from what I could gather on a reddit post. My solution was to spend $20 and get an Intel wifi card that I swapped out -- wireless is working out of the box now.