Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 WiFi Driver

IRL_Grant · #1 October 31st, 2012, 15:14

Hello,

I know that someone was working on this driver as recent as August but I haven't been able to find anything else about it. I would love to have this particular wifi card working, so if anyone knows of a more recent status (if any) I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks much!

xmj · #2 November 1st, 2012, 09:57

Hi,
I do have the same issue.

One thing that might have worked (or so I thought) but didn't was:

Modify /usr/src/sys/dev/iwn/if_iwn.c to include

Code:

  { 0x8086, 0x088e, "Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235"              },

in its

Code:

static const struct iwn_ident iwn_ident_table[]

where all other Chips are listed.

# pciconf -lbcev yields the following

Code:

none4@pci0:3:0:0:       class=0x028000 card=0x40608086 chip=0x088e8086 rev=0x24 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
    class      = network
    bar   [10] = type Memory, range 64, base 0xf7800000, size 8192, disabled
    cap 01[c8] = powerspec 3  supports D0 D3  current D3
    cap 05[d0] = MSI supports 1 message, 64 bit 
    cap 10[e0] = PCI-Express 1 endpoint max data 128(128) FLR link x1(x1)
ecap 0001[100] = AER 1 0 fatal 0 non-fatal 1 corrected
ecap 0003[140] = Serial 1 c48508ffff3ca99c
  PCI-e errors = Correctable Error Detected
                 Unsupported Request Detected
     Corrected = Advisory Non-Fatal Error

and I'm using

Code:

 FreeBSD 10.0-CURRENT #4: Mon Oct 29 13:32:42 EET 2012

on an ASUS UX32VD-R4001 notebook.

I'd love to see a solution for this, not being a programmer myself.

lee170 · #3 November 4th, 2012, 14:37

A couple of reasons why your modification of if_iwn.c did not work are: 1) simply editing the iwn_ident_table without actually adding driver code will not do anything. 2) if the driver code were available, you'd need to compile and link if_iwn.c for it to have an effect. There is a developer who's taken responsibility for the intel 6235 driver but he's been quiet since August. I also have that card and cannot use BSD because of the lack of a driver.

xmj · #4 November 4th, 2012, 21:17

lee170:
Needless to say I recompiled the system after adding that one-liner.

And guess what?

After downloading the latest firmware, it works.

Instructions:

1. Add the oneliner

Code:

{ 0x8086, 0x088e, "Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235"              },

to /usr/src/sys/dev/iwn/if_iwn.c as described above
2. Download the latest firmware from http://intellinuxwireless.org/?n=downloads -- make sure it's the iwlwifi-6000g2b-ucode-18.168.6.1.tgz.
2a. Extract the tgz, copy iwlwifi-6000g2b-6.ucode to /usr/src/sys/contrib/dev/iwn/iwlwifi-6000g2b-18.168.6.1.fw
2b Modify /usr/src/sys/modules/iwnfw/iwn6000g2b/Makefile so that it looks like this:

Code:

<SNIP>
KMOD=   iwn6000g2bfw
IMG=    iwlwifi-6000g2b-18.168.6.1
</SNIP>

3. # make -C /usr/src/sys/modules/iwnfw/iwn6000g2b/ clean all install

This should be everything needed to get some verbose messages confirming that iwn0 indeed has been successfully added.

I'll submit a patch/PR over the next few days.

There is one issue (happened three times, can reproduce): If I want to # kldunload if_iwn, my system reboots. I don't know why that is (yet), but ... as I don't intend to unload it all too often, it's not as relevant for me as for others - so I trust someone else will take a look at it.

lee170 · #5 November 5th, 2012, 13:02

Nice work! I'll try that today.

xmj · #6 November 5th, 2012, 16:39

Thanks. Please do report any additional steps though, in case I've forgotten to list something.
Then I'll file a PR with the respective patches and one day we'll see it move upstream

IRL_Grant · #7 November 8th, 2012, 16:23

Thanks for figuring all of that out xmj. I am not quite sure what all that means tbh but I will read up a bit more to try to get that working for my system as well.

Thanks again!

xmj · #8 November 11th, 2012, 14:15

I forgot to include the obvious - load the kernel module.

4.

# kldload iwn6000g2bfw

kldload if_iwn

vandunen · #9 November 11th, 2012, 18:20

Hi xmj, must this *ucode file be source code or pure binary?
In the aforementioned directory all other other files's name are *.fw.uu and seem to be text files,
at least the headers.
After compiling via Makefile I get the erro message "Don't know how to make /usr/../contrib/dev/../*iwl*.fw.uu".
I use the PC-BSD 9.0

xmj · #10 November 12th, 2012, 09:16

The file should be *ucode.
I put the firmware into /usr/src/sys/contrib/dev/iwn/iwlwifi-6000g2b-18.168.6.1.fw.uu.
When I tried to % cat it, the output was garbage. After uudecoding it, as is invoked by some other Makefile, I was able to actually see some sourcecode.

I didn't do anything with it, though.

Make sure you point the /usr/src/sys/modules/iwnfw/iwn6000g2b/Makefile to the iwlwifi-6000g2b-18.168.6.1.fw.uu -- just leave out the .fw.uu part.

vandunen · #11 November 13th, 2012, 21:28

I uuencoded the microcode and the compilation via described Makefile worked.
Thanks a lot!

The only problem I had is with kernel loading the if_iwn, but I guess that's another topic
which is not suppposed to be to mentioned in this thread

patpro · #12 November 17th, 2012, 22:26

Hello,

I'm not using FreeBSD 9 yet, but I plan to migrate my FreeBSD gateway to a brand new box, with a fresh install of FreeBSD 9.x. The box I'm planing to buy uses an Intel N6230 WIFI card. I don't care about bluetooth support, but I do need proper WIFI support.
Do you think I must adapt the procedure above for this card, or will it be supported out of the box?

regards

xmj · #13 November 21st, 2012, 06:05

/usr/src/sys/dev/iwn/if_iwn.c comes with support for two "Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230" chips.

Code:

<SNIP>
        { 0x8086, 0x0090, "Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230"              },
        { 0x8086, 0x0091, "Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230"              },
<SNIP>

It should be supported out of the box but as this is a different chip, you might want to look in a different thread.

Try for instance this one: http://forums.FreeBSD.org/showthread...highlight=6230.

It's more than a year old and focuses on another chip -- then again, it uses a solution developed for your N 6230 on that other chip.

Both facts suggest that other people don't have issues with the chip.

Should you encounter any, it shouldn't be that hard to upgrade the firmware (mentioned in here) and look for other people's solutions on google or ##freebsd on freenode IRC.

patpro · #14 November 22nd, 2012, 20:22

Thank you xmj, that's good news.
Looks like I can buy this "Relia" box then

http://aleutia.com/products/relia-fa...ustrial-server

xmj · #15 November 24th, 2012, 22:30

To get back on topic, here's the output for FreeBSD 10.0-CURRENT #7 r243502M: Sat Nov 24 22:51:00 EET 2012
# svn diff

Code:

Index: sys/dev/iwn/if_iwn.c
===================================================================
--- sys/dev/iwn/if_iwn.c        (revision 243502)
+++ sys/dev/iwn/if_iwn.c        (working copy)
@@ -93,6 +93,7 @@
        { 0x8086, 0x0886, "Intel Centrino Wireless-N + WiMAX 6150"      },
        { 0x8086, 0x0896, "Intel Centrino Wireless-N 130"               },
        { 0x8086, 0x0887, "Intel Centrino Wireless-N 130"               },
+       { 0x8086, 0x088e, "Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235"              },
        { 0x8086, 0x08ae, "Intel Centrino Wireless-N 100"               },
        { 0x8086, 0x08af, "Intel Centrino Wireless-N 100"               },
        { 0x8086, 0x4229, "Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965"               },
Index: sys/modules/iwnfw/iwn6000g2b/Makefile
===================================================================
--- sys/modules/iwnfw/iwn6000g2b/Makefile       (revision 243502)
+++ sys/modules/iwnfw/iwn6000g2b/Makefile       (working copy)
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # $FreeBSD$
 
 KMOD=  iwn6000g2bfw
-IMG=   iwlwifi-6000g2b-17.168.5.2
+IMG=   iwlwifi-6000g2b-18.168.6.1
 
 .include <bsd.kmod.mk>

bschmidt · #16 November 26th, 2012, 09:23

Thanks for the effort guys.

Just wondering, did you also test 802.11n and 40 MHz channels? The last time I've looked into adding 6235 support, I had really big issues at HT40, firmware crashes, terrible throughput, .. As you've probably noticed, I've pushed the firmware into the tree already, but did not add the IDs for that reason.

Point is, I suspect that there is some driver incompatibility with the new firmware rendering the device close to unusable and because the FW is also used for the 6230, that one too. It'd be highly appreciated if someone is willing to compare our driver with the Linux one to figure out what's going on.

quali · #17 January 23rd, 2013, 03:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by xmj

lee170:
Needless to say I recompiled the system after adding that one-liner.

And guess what?

After downloading the latest firmware, it works.

Instructions:

1. Add the oneliner

Code:

{ 0x8086, 0x088e, "Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235"              },

to /usr/src/sys/dev/iwn/if_iwn.c as described above
2. Download the latest firmware from http://intellinuxwireless.org/?n=downloads -- make sure it's the iwlwifi-6000g2b-ucode-18.168.6.1.tgz.
2a. Extract the tgz, copy iwlwifi-6000g2b-6.ucode to /usr/src/sys/contrib/dev/iwn/iwlwifi-6000g2b-18.168.6.1.fw
2b Modify /usr/src/sys/modules/iwnfw/iwn6000g2b/Makefile so that it looks like this:

Code:

<SNIP>
KMOD=   iwn6000g2bfw
IMG=    iwlwifi-6000g2b-18.168.6.1
</SNIP>

3. # make -C /usr/src/sys/modules/iwnfw/iwn6000g2b/ clean all install

This should be everything needed to get some verbose messages confirming that iwn0 indeed has been successfully added.

I'll submit a patch/PR over the next few days.

There is one issue (happened three times, can reproduce): If I want to # kldunload if_iwn, my system reboots. I don't know why that is (yet), but ... as I don't intend to unload it all too often, it's not as relevant for me as for others - so I trust someone else will take a look at it.

One little addition here.

Instead of
# uuencode
in case it takes one hour to encode and you start to realize you're doing something wrong;
# b64encode -o iwlwifi-6000g2b-18.168.6.1.fw.uu iwlwifi-6000g2b-6.ucode iwlwifi-6000g2b-18.168.6.1.fw.uu

Happy wireless surfing.

quali · #18 January 23rd, 2013, 10:04

Ok it actually didn't work for me. None of these methods.

It gives me an error due to linux driver incompatibility.
Even after changing the kernel modules and loading only this wireless module. I dont know, I tried everything.

lunix1 · #19 February 8th, 2013, 21:38

I come from linux and I wanted to use FreeBSD; without wireless connections it is useless for me; I'm not enthusiastis to use exclusively command-line on a new operating system so I choose PCBSD-9.1 for the beginning.

After 2 months of work only to set up the wireless connection on Intel 6235, I finally succeeded. IT REALLY WORKS!, good speed, stable, no interruptions.

Briefly,

On a fresh install, on the entire SSD, I fetched the sources, I did line 1 from xmj post, then I rebuilt the kernel. After that, the iwn0 interface appeared in Network Manager but "no carrier" and no wireless flashing LED.
I proceeded to line 2. and 3 (xmj's post) with a small but necessary additional step to b64encode the .ucode before copying it. After that, I was able to kldload iwn6000g2bfw, kldunload it, no need to kldload if_iwn already loaded at boot, no succes to kldunload if_iwn (no reboot but "can't find if_iwn.ko file" message).

Now wlan0 is created in NM, status: associated, wireless LED is up and responding to Fn +F... keys combination, BUT wlan0 (and me) struggled to acquire an IP address from a router restored to factory defaults (no filter, no security, no firewall) for a whole month. Meanwhile, of course, frustrating no wireless connection.

"I tried everything" and no post on net was helpful; I decided to enter the router menu to inspect once again, I activated the "AP isolation" option (that was just the case but not important at all), save and REBOOT (the router); when I clicked "reboot" I lost my connection to the router and it didn't come up again in reasonable time, so I DISCONNECTED the cable from my machine; very soon after refreshing the browser, I had the reboot bar on my screen and I knew that I was on a functional wireless connection.

All the system settings are the same like the day before, when I couldn't get IP; wlan0 status is still "associated" (not active); AP isolation was just a try and disabling it can't break the wireless connection.

Conclusions:

the iwn driver really works
I don't know what happened when the connection was finally up and I don't know how can I control this step.
If anyone thinks that I can help with a system message, please ask.

HenryHu · #20 May 11th, 2013, 03:14

I just tried to use iwn with 6235 on my ASUS UX51VZ. By using this method, I'm able to create wlan0. However, it keeps switching between "associated" and "no carrier". After configuring it with -ht40, it works fairly well. I've not tested the performance, but at least the connection seems stable.

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The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to xmj For This Useful Post:
IRL_Grant (November 8th, 2012), lunix1 (February 8th, 2013)

The Following User Says Thank You to xmj For This Useful Post:
IRL_Grant (November 8th, 2012)

The Following User Says Thank You to xmj For This Useful Post:
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