Trouble with a mini-pcie wireless card
I built a new mini PC recently, but have had some trouble with the wifi on it. (Asus E45M1-I motherboard) The motherboard has a mini-PCIe slot which contains an Atheros Azurewave wifi card. (it comes out of the factory with this card) I can't detect the wifi card at all in Ubuntu 11.10 - it doesn't even seem to show up in the results from the lspci command. I can't see anything in the EFI BIOS about enabling or disabling the wifi nor the PCIe slots. I eventually caved and installed Windows 7 and I can't seem to see the wifi card there either, even with the official drivers installed. So I'm thinking it's not a Linux issue, but I wondered if the collective wisdom here has any ideas what the problem could be? My thoughts so far are: a) The mini-PCIe slot is broken. b) The mini-PCIe wifi card is broken. c) There's some kind of hardware "disable wifi" switch hiding on the board that I can't find :/ d) There's some kind of software "Disable wifi" feature that needs to be toggled somehow, but I have no idea where to find. What I've tried: * Removing the mini-PCIe card and reinserting it. I don't have a spare half-length mini-PCIe card lying around to swap in, nor anything else to test the wifi card in, which makes it hard. :/ (They're only $10 on ebay, so if there are no good suggestions I'll just buy one and give it a shot and at least discover if the slot works.) Do you know if mini-PCIe slots are physically compatible with real PCIe slots? Unlikely, but thought I'd ask, in case I can jam the mini board into a full slot in my desktop..
On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:28:42 PM Toby Corkindale wrote:
I built a new mini PC recently, but have had some trouble with the wifi on it. (Asus E45M1-I motherboard)
The motherboard has a mini-PCIe slot which contains an Atheros Azurewave wifi card. (it comes out of the factory with this card)
Hi Toby I've checked the asus website and had a look at the only E45M1-1 listed which is the E45M1-M PRO with AMD Fusion dual-core APU motherboard with support for DirectX 11. However the spec list does not include a mini-PC1e slot. The only ones are 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode) 1 x PCIe 2.0 x1 () 2 x PCI () I understand there are adapters that will let you plug a mini-PCie card into a PC1e slot but possibly they need specially drivers to cover the addressing. Cheers Nic
On 13/02/12 18:49, Nic Baxter wrote:
On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:28:42 PM Toby Corkindale wrote:
I built a new mini PC recently, but have had some trouble with the wifi on it. (Asus E45M1-I motherboard)
The motherboard has a mini-PCIe slot which contains an Atheros Azurewave wifi card. (it comes out of the factory with this card)
Hi Toby I've checked the asus website and had a look at the only E45M1-1 listed which is the E45M1-M PRO with AMD Fusion dual-core APU motherboard with support for DirectX 11.
Have a look at this page: http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/E45M1I_DELUXE/ In the main photo, you can see in the (roughly) top-right corner, between the DRAM and PCIE slots, there's a small silver board. That's the wifi card, and it's plugged into a mini-PCIe slot. They don't mention the slot on the specifications, you're right.
However the spec list does not include a mini-PC1e slot. The only ones are 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode) 1 x PCIe 2.0 x1 () 2 x PCI ()
I understand there are adapters that will let you plug a mini-PCie card into a PC1e slot but possibly they need specially drivers to cover the addressing.
Ah OK, so it's not so simple. ta, Toby
On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:56:13 PM Toby Corkindale wrote:
On 13/02/12 18:49, Nic Baxter wrote:
On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:28:42 PM Toby Corkindale wrote:
I built a new mini PC recently, but have had some trouble with the wifi on it. (Asus E45M1-I motherboard)
The motherboard has a mini-PCIe slot which contains an Atheros Azurewave wifi card. (it comes out of the factory with this card)
Hi Toby I've checked the asus website and had a look at the only E45M1-1 listed which is the E45M1-M PRO with AMD Fusion dual-core APU motherboard with support for DirectX 11.
Have a look at this page: http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/E45M1I_DELUXE/ Very weird. Include features and don't put them in the specs. However if you look at the Windows downloads there is one for the wifi card. Might be worth downloading it so see what happens. It may help your Linux configuring.
Cheers Nic
On 13 February 2012 19:07, Nic Baxter <nic@nicbaxter.com.au> wrote: ....
Have a look at this page: http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/E45M1I_DELUXE/
Very weird. Include features and don't put them in the specs. However if you look at the Windows downloads there is one for the wifi card. Might be worth downloading it so see what happens. It may help your Linux configuring.
Perhaps it needs the download to install firmware for the WiFi controller. A lot of such boards do before which the board will not respond. The NEC USB 3.0 chips might also be require at least one boot under Windows to load the firmware (which you already did). Andrew
On 14/02/12 16:33, Andrew Worsley wrote:
On 13 February 2012 19:07, Nic Baxter<nic@nicbaxter.com.au> wrote: ....
Have a look at this page: http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/E45M1I_DELUXE/
Very weird. Include features and don't put them in the specs. However if you look at the Windows downloads there is one for the wifi card. Might be worth downloading it so see what happens. It may help your Linux configuring.
Perhaps it needs the download to install firmware for the WiFi controller. A lot of such boards do before which the board will not respond. The NEC USB 3.0 chips might also be require at least one boot under Windows to load the firmware (which you already did).
I would still expect the device to show up in the PCI list though, even if it's not activated for wireless. Otherwise how would the firmware get loaded?
On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 04:57:17PM +1100, Toby Corkindale wrote:
On 14/02/12 16:33, Andrew Worsley wrote:
Perhaps it needs the download to install firmware for the WiFi controller. A lot of such boards do before which the board will not respond. The NEC USB 3.0 chips might also be require at least one boot under Windows to load the firmware (which you already did).
I would still expect the device to show up in the PCI list though, even if it's not activated for wireless. Otherwise how would the firmware get loaded?
if the mini-pcie card is a usb card with a wifi adaptor on it, then it (the wifi adaptor) won't show up with lspci. try lsusb. the usb adaptor itself should show up with lspci. if that's what it is. just guessing... (btw, i haven't personally seen a wifi card like this but i've seen and used several "PCI" DVB cards which are actually USB devices soldered onto a USB interface PCI card). craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au> BOFH excuse #65: system needs to be rebooted
On 14/02/12 17:50, Craig Sanders wrote:
if the mini-pcie card is a usb card with a wifi adaptor on it, then it (the wifi adaptor) won't show up with lspci. try lsusb.
the usb adaptor itself should show up with lspci. if that's what it is.
Yep, similar situation with the solid state drive in my Eee PC. The SSD is plugged into a mini PCI-e slot, and has its own in-built SATA controller. So if I didn't know better, I would have said it's a SATA SSD. Except it's plugged into a mini PCI-e slot.
participants (5)
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Andrew Worsley -
Craig Sanders -
Jeremy Visser -
Nic Baxter -
Toby Corkindale