#4 Realtek 8187b chipsets don't work

[Bernhard Rosenkraenzer]

I'm using a Medion WIM2160 notebook with an onboard Realtek 8187b chipset (USB ID: 0bda:8189).

After tweaking the rtl-wifi driver to see that USB ID, it loads and recognizes the MAC address, but the device doesn't work and I get

phy1: hwaddr 00:07:ca:06:5a:ef, rtl8187 V0 + rtl8225
phy1: RF Calibration Failed! 0

in dmesg.

[Raúl]

Logged In: YES
user_id=1667631
Originator: NO

Same problem here. I plugged the device, modprobed the module, did the echo to new_id file, ifconfig wlan1 up and "iwlist scan" shows nothing. My card vendor is TENDnet, model TEW-424UB.

dmesg output:
usb 5-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 14
usb 5-4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
usbcore: registered new interface driver rtl8187
wmaster0: Selected rate control algorithm 'simple'
phy1: hwaddr 00:14:d1:30:52:62, rtl8187 V0 + rtl8225
net wlan1: device_rename: sysfs_create_symlink failed (-17)
udev: renamed network interface wlan0 to wlan1
phy1: RF Calibration Failed! 0
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan1: link is not ready

lsusb:
Bus 005 Device 014: ID 0bda:8189 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.

Linux 2.6.23.9-rc1 on Debian sid system.

Please, let me know if I can be of any help.

Thanks.

[Jeff Cranmer]

Logged In: YES
user_id=577946
Originator: NO

since this shows up in lsusb as 0bda:8189, I suspect that this can be fixed by adding an appropriate line to the structure near the top of this kernel driver:
drivers/net/wireless/rtl8187_dev.c

Modifying the structure to accomodate both the 8189 and 8197 devices, it becomes:

static struct usb_device_id rtl8187_table[] __devinitdata = {
/* Realtek */
{USB_DEVICE(0x0bda, 0x8187)},
{USB_DEVICE(0x0bda, 0x8189)},
{USB_DEVICE(0x0bda, 0x8197)},
/* netgear */
{USB_DEVICE(0x0846, 0x6100)},
{USB_DEVICE(0x0846, 0x6a00)},
{}
};

I added the line

[Bernhard Rosenkraenzer]

Logged In: YES
user_id=15538
Originator: YES

Updating rtl8187_dev.c with the USB ID is what I meant in the original report with "After tweaking the rtl-wifi driver to see that USB ID" -- so that bit is already done.
Still doesn't work -- sees the MAC address, then complains that RF Calibration failed.

[Jeff Cranmer]

Logged In: YES
user_id=577946
Originator: NO

Yep - I'm getting the same "RF Calibration Failed!" error with my RTL8197 unit.

I have a driver from the factory that I'm going to try, which is based upon ndiswrapper. Not too hopeful though :-(

Can anyone shed some light on what module generates this error? I can't find it within the c code for the driver.

[Daniel Gimpelevich]

Logged In: YES
user_id=877198
Originator: NO

Here is a driver for the 8187b chipsets:
http://www.datanorth.net/%7Ecuervo/rtl8187b/
How mergeable is that so far?

[Nobody/Anonymous]

Logged In: NO

It is in wireless-testing:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=432280#c101