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jeffery_the_wind
Asked: 2012-05-01 11:19:44 +0800 CST

Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG drops wireless and forgets wireless pass key every 10 seconds

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Long time ubuntu user here. I usually use www.ubuntuforums.org but i thought I would something here. Anyway i recently upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 with my Lenovo x61s laptop. Immediately after starting up, i noticed that the wireless connection drops and forgets the wireless keys about every 10 to 15 seconds. So every time i finish entering the wireless password, i can wait 10 seconds, and I get booted from the network and am prompted again for the pass phrase. Obviously there is a problem here, and I have noticed a lot of other questions on this forum about this. The only real answer I saw was doing:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off

But when I do that I get this error:

Error for wireless request "Set Power Management" (8B2C) : SET failed on device wlan0 ; operation not supported.

And i know my wireless card is using wlan0 for the connection.

Please any help is greatly appreciated!

** EDIT **

I just restarted the new install for the first time, and now I am on a different wifi network, and the wireless connection seems to be working. Will update with any changes.

** UPDATE **

So last night I shut down the computer and brought it home. The wireless performed flawlessly on my home network. I brought it back to the office, where i had the original problems, and still i get kicked off the wireless network every 15 seconds... It must be a problem with the network instead of with Ubuntu. Thanks for the help everyone! but I think my Ubuntu installation is working correctly!

Here is the output from lspci -vv for the wireless controller:

03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)
    Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 1010
    Physical Slot: 3
    Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx+
    Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
    Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
    Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 46
    Region 0: Memory at dfcff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: iwl3945
    Kernel modules: iwl3945
wireless intel-wireless 12.04

3 Answers

  1. This has happened to me twice on my netbook, thankfully not at home where all has been well.

    The answer has been to walk away from the connection with the laptop for at least a few hours. While away from the connection, go into "Edit Connections" by clicking the wireless icon towards top right of the screen and delete the wireless connection you had a problem connecting to. When you next want to connect to it, it treats it as a new connection and works. Well it has for me twice, I hope it does for you.

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  2. I would recommend deleting your network configuration and starting anew (from NetworkManager), and/or at least trying to see if your keyring password is set to the same as your login.

    https://one.ubuntu.com/help/faq/how-do-i-get-rid-of-the-keyring-password-prompt/

    If this doesn't work you can try deleting your keyring (run: seahorse and rightclick- delete login keyring). Reboot (or logout, and login again).

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  3. I have the same card with a similar problem, sometimes it drops "not every day" but when it drops it wont reconnect until i have switched off and on the wifi with the physical switch on my laptop. If I don't do that I'm stuck in the loop of retyping the password

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