Problems with Linux wifi on an Intel network card

This is another “I don’t really understand why this is the case, but it seems to have helped so I’m putting here to help future people googling for solutions”

I have a new thinkpad for my new workplace. It’s a T530i, which has an Intel network card (lspci says “Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 “). I’m running Linux mint on it.

Historically I’ve had zero problems with thinkpads under Linux, but unfortunately this one’s wifi doesn’t seem to get along with the work network (I’ve had my home thinkpad connect here absolutely fine). It occasionally managed to connect, and was fine once it did, but this usually required a few dozen retries, in the meantime it was just spinning with:

[   63.833944] wlan0: authenticate with b8:c7:5d:09:13:bd
[   63.835845] wlan0: send auth to b8:c7:5d:09:13:bd (try 1/3)
[   63.840526] wlan0: authenticated
[   63.840577] wlan0: waiting for beacon from b8:c7:5d:09:13:bd
[   73.150286] wlan0: authenticate with b8:c7:5d:09:13:bd
[   73.153017] wlan0: send auth to b8:c7:5d:09:13:bd (try 1/3)
[   73.154990] wlan0: authenticated
[   73.155024] wlan0: waiting for beacon from b8:c7:5d:09:13:bd
[   82.445629] wlan0: authenticate with b8:c7:5d:09:13:bd
[   82.447637] wlan0: send auth to b8:c7:5d:09:13:bd (try 1/3)
[   82.452209] wlan0: authenticated
[   82.452262] wlan0: waiting for beacon from b8:c7:5d:09:13:bd
[   91.652513] wlan0: authenticate with b8:c7:5d:09:13:bd
[   91.654944] wlan0: send auth to b8:c7:5d:09:13:bd (try 1/3)
[   91.659208] wlan0: authenticated

After a lot of googling and trying solutions that didn’t work (in particular WICD over NetworkManager and disabling IPv6), I eventually found someone suggesting it might be a kernel issue. I figured it was worth a shot, so I grabbed the 3.9.5 kernel images that ubuntu provide and installed them (I was previously running 3.5.0).

This did indeed completely fix the issue. Buggered if I know why (I’ve never really invested the time to get good at Linux administration. I just use it), but hopefully this information will help someone else.

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2 thoughts on “Problems with Linux wifi on an Intel network card

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  2. Julian Mack

    I was having a similar issue but with a much newer kernel.

    I turned out that my router was set to use “WPA Auto” security. I changed it to “WPA2-PSK[AES]” and my wireless now connects instantly.

    So remember to check your router settings also.

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