Realtek 8192CU wireless not working with MGA2 kernel 3.4

[tandrews16]

Using a Dell Dimension E310 and an Encore USB wireless N adapter, model ENUWI-1XN45. The adapter uses a chip that uses the Realtec 8192CU driver. Everything worked fine with Mageia 1 and the drakx tools, but I had problems with Mageia 2 until I used the networkmanager applet and disabled the drakx tools. It worked OK with that, except for the occasional connection drop, until the latest kernel update earlier today. Now it won't connect wirelessly at all. The device is detected and it sees my network SSID, but won't connect. The connection still works if I boot into the old kernel. I haven't tried a wired connection yet, but as I'm using a wired connection and the new kernel to post this, I suspect it would work on that computer, too.

I don't know enough about this stuff to even know where to start looking. Any ideas?

[claire]

You are maybe missing the nonfree firmware. Do you have the Nonfree medias enabled?

Nonfree Release & Nonfree Updates

Once enabled try to update manually through MCC. The package it is probably missing is called kernel-firmware-nonfree

[tandrews16]

The device was working before the kernel update, and still does if I boot into the older kernel. If I boot into the new kernel, the KDE networkmanager applet tries to connect several times (5? 7? no more than 10) and fails. Non-free repositories are enabled. Using MCC from the older kernel, I see rtlwifi-firmware, which appears to contain the needed rtl8192cufw.bin firmware file, is installed. kernel-firmware-nonfree isn't installed, because it wasn't needed to make the device work before. I don't see any rtl8192cu packages in that one, but I'm installing it and its dependencies anyway(using the old kernel wifi connection), and will try again.

[tandrews16]

No difference.

[claire]

That is a regression then, please create a bug for it on Mageia bugzilla
https://bugs.mageia.org

State that it is a regression after the kernel update and place a link to the forum post and a link to the bug here

[claire]

It will probably also help if you add the output of lsusb -v to the bug with the adapter plugged in and lspcidrake -v

[tandrews16]

https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8754

[tandrews16]

I have been able to get this dongle working by blacklisting the included rtl8192cu module, uninstalling the rtlwifi-firmware package, and installing the latest 8192cu driver from Realtec. In addition, to disable the dongle's powersave function, I created a 8192cu.conf file as discussed at http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?6,8618

To me, this indicates the problem resides with the rtl8192cu driver included with the kernel.

[tandrews16]

Another update - For some reason unknown to me, using the Realtek-supplied 8192cu module dropped my USB bus speed down to USB 1.1 levels. So, that is unacceptable, too. I tried the rtl8192cu module again after the latest kernel update, and the dongle still won't work with it.

Time to chalk the Dongle Wars up to experience and move on. I'm done with it, at least until Mageia 3 comes out. I have purchased a PCI card with a Broadcom 4318 chip, which I know will work with the b43 driver since I already have another in another computer. That should accomplish what I want to do.