[Solved] WLAN and power management ?

WLAN adapter and miniPCI-express slot
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nbpf
Posts: 26
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 1:06 pm

[Solved] WLAN and power management ?

Post by nbpf »

Hardware: FITPC3-2x2Gb-T40E-WB-FM4U with Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01) as network controller.

Operating system: Debian / Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 running headless.

Problem: wireless works fine and very stable but only for a few hours. After that wlan0 becomes not ready and the only way to reconnect to the (headless) system is to reboot.

Question: could the problem be related with power management ? Is there a way to control network power management via BIOS ?

Thanks,
Nicola
Last edited by nbpf on Sat Dec 21, 2013 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mbirger

Re: WLAN and power management ?

Post by mbirger »

It is related to the mini PCIe module used in general.
Power management less probable as if it had, it would not be able to operate properly.
It could be related to operating temperatures and the fact that the device temperature increased with time, but T40E processor is relatively low power device and shouldn't cause such issues. In addition if after reboot it works fine again.

I would try to replace the WLAN module to verify the stability.

nbpf
Posts: 26
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 1:06 pm

Re: WLAN and power management ?

Post by nbpf »

mbirger wrote:It is related to the mini PCIe module used in general.
Power management less probable as if it had, it would not be able to operate properly.
It could be related to operating temperatures and the fact that the device temperature increased with time, but T40E processor is relatively low power device and shouldn't cause such issues. In addition if after reboot it works fine again.

I would try to replace the WLAN module to verify the stability.
Thanks for your reply mbirger, what do you exactly mean by replacing the WLAN module ?

I have upgraded to Debian testing which uses more recent Realtek drivers and the problem persists.

I have also installed Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" - Cinnamon (64-bit) just to be sure: same problem: yesterday evening everything worked fine (although ping times were quite scattered, from about 3 to 3000 ms !), this morning I could not connect via ssh to the machine.

I have now rebooted with connected keyboard and monitor to see if the system goes into suspend mode (and, in this case, if it can resume cleanly). I will be able to report this evening.

I am running similar headless Debian systems on two old Thinkpads in my home network. Both run 24/7 and can be reached very reliably via ssh. This suggests that what I am experiencing is not a router problem.

mbirger

Re: WLAN and power management ?

Post by mbirger »

According to the P/N you have sent your PC came with the following Wireless module:
WLAN 802.11 b/g/n (2.4GHz Qcom Q802XRN5B module)

It is 3rd party mini PCIe card, that of course has been checked.
I suggest to:
1. Open fit-PC3 bottom door and verify that mini PCIe half size module is mounted properly (the module with the antenna wires).
2. If you have another one try it.
3. Please for stability in Windows (drivers are in the wiki).

If the above steps won't help, consider an RMA.

nbpf
Posts: 26
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 1:06 pm

Re: WLAN and power management ?

Post by nbpf »

Thanks for your support mbirger, I really appreciate !

First I can confirm that the issue does not appear to be related to power management: both with Debian and with Mint the system is up and running, it's just that the wireless network interface becomes not ready after a few hours of activity. The wired network interface works fine.
mbirger wrote:According to the P/N you have sent your PC came with the following Wireless module:
WLAN 802.11 b/g/n (2.4GHz Qcom Q802XRN5B module)
No, the network controller in my Fit-PC3 is: "Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)"
mbirger wrote: It is 3rd party mini PCIe card, that of course has been checked.
I suggest to:
1. Open fit-PC3 bottom door and verify that mini PCIe half size module is mounted properly (the module with the antenna wires).
2. If you have another one try it.
3. Please for stability in Windows (drivers are in the wiki).

If the above steps won't help, consider an RMA.
I'm going to check the mounting of the module and report. What is an RMA ?

nbpf
Posts: 26
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 1:06 pm

Re: [Solved] WLAN and power management ?

Post by nbpf »

To make a long story short: as it turned out, it was a router Problem, for details, please check http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=109946 and http://debianforum.de/forum/viewtopic.p ... 23#p967023 (in German).

Thanks to everybody who has contributed solving this problem, in particular, thanks to habakug from http://debianforum.de/ who provided the right pointer http://debianforum.de/forum/viewtopic.p ... 23#p966843 !

As a preliminary conclusion, I can recommend the Fit-PC3 as a headless Debian based music server (mpd, minidlna at the moment) without restrictions. A minimal (base system, no X, desktop, etc.) Debian stable (wheezy) network installation (http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/7.3 ... etinst.iso) can be done in about 20 minutes and runs out of the box.

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