Issue with TP-Link wireless pci adapter(TL-WN851ND)[SOLVED]

[Aetion]

Hi,
I have a TP-Link wireless pci adapter ( TL-WN851ND ).
Linux Mint 16 seems to detect it as it shows up in lshw and lspci.
But no wireless networks are detected and also the led on the panel of the adapter is off.

Here is the mintWifi output:

Code: Select all

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 90:2b:34:2f:99:56  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:344 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:344 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:26832 (26.8 KB)  TX bytes:26832 (26.8 KB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 10:fe:ed:67:dc:4f  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
  -- Qualcomm Atheros AR9227 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
      ==> PCI ID = 168c:002d (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...

Any help is appreciated.

[deaver-aa8yy]

Did you try to click the wifi icon and connect to hidden network by entering your network(router) name and security type? Perhaps you are not broadcasting router name, an option in routers.

[Aetion]

Hi,
Yes, I manually tried creating a wireless connection via network manager in KDE. But it just says 'disconnected'.

The wired port (eth0 ) is disconnected so it makes sense there. My wireless network is set to not broadcast the SSID, but it doesnt even detect other networks around my house, that are picked up with pretty good signal quality in Windows 7. Also KDE normally shows an 'other network' option for unidentified networks in the applet, but even that doesnt show up.

It just seems as if the wireless adapter is detected but is not enabled, despite network manager saying its enabled.

[The-Wizard]

same chip set as my tp link usb adaptor, after spending hours trying all the solutions that abound on this and the Ubuntu forum, I upgraded to the latest stable Kernel, and whalah... it now works

[Aetion]

same chip set as my tp link usb adaptor, after spending hours trying all the solutions that abound on this and the Ubuntu forum, I upgraded to the latest stable Kernel, and whalah... it now works

Hi,
After your reply, I decided to move my machine temporarily to my router so I could connect it via wire and get internet.

So basically, I did two things:
1. Upgrade the system via apt-get upgrade
2. Switched my router from AP mode to router mode and enabled ssid broadcast on it.

After update and reboot, my wireless network was detected and is working fine.

Its kinda weird, because I am pretty sure I have used Linux Mint 19 and other distros with non-ssid-broadcast networks. So it was probably something in the update.

Thanx for the reply

[The-Wizard]

if your now happy please edit the title of your first post to include the word "solved"

wizard

[Aetion]

Hi,
I marked it as solved, but I had to change the title a bit to add 'solved' as the maximum character length had been reached.