Wifi Fn+F2 is not working on Ubuntu 15.04 on Asus laptop X450JB

Question

I am using Asus laptop X450JB on Ubuntu 15.04. My WiFi is not working.

• I have tried to enable it via top bar -> Enable WiFi, but it doesn't work.
• I have tried to enable it via Fn + F2, it doesn't work either.
• I have tried several OS: Ubuntu 15.04, Fedora 22, CentOS 7, none was working.
• I tried installing Windows 10 (unactivated), and the WiFi worked out of the box. Fn + F2 worked as well.

I have tried several suggestions from other pages:

• $ sudo rfkill unblock all doesn't work.
• Entering sleep mode (Fn + F1) then wake up doesn't work.
• echo "options asus_nb_wmi wapf=4" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/asus_nb_wmi.conf it doesn't work for me. I tried from wapf=0 until wapf=4, none worked.

I have just installed fresh Ubuntu 15.04 and here are some facts of my hardware:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 15.04
Release:    15.04
Codename:   vivid

$ uname -a
Linux andy-X450JB 3.19.0-15-generic #15-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 16 23:32:37 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ iwconfig
eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=15 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off

lo        no wireless extensions.


$ rfkill list all
0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: yes
    Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
3: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

$ lspci | grep Network
03:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

$ sudo lshw -class network
[sudo] password for andy: 
  *-network DISABLED      
       description: Wireless interface
       product: QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter
       vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 01
       serial: 28:c2:dd:50:45:53
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.19.0-15-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
       resources: irq:18 memory:f7900000-f797ffff memory:f7980000-f798ffff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: QCA8171 Gigabit Ethernet
       vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 10
       serial: 14:dd:a9:8e:60:99
       size: 100Mbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm pciexpress msi msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=alx duplex=full ip=192.168.0.110 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s
       resources: irq:33 memory:f7800000-f783ffff ioport:d000(size=128)


$ lsmod | grep asus
asus_nb_wmi            24576  0 
asus_wmi               24576  1 asus_nb_wmi
sparse_keymap          16384  2 acer_wmi,asus_wmi
wmi                    20480  4 acer_wmi,mxm_wmi,nouveau,asus_wmi
video                  20480  4 i915,acer_wmi,nouveau,asus_wmi


$ lsmod | grep -e ath9k -e asus
ath9k                 147456  0 
ath9k_common           32768  1 ath9k
ath9k_hw              458752  2 ath9k_common,ath9k
ath                    32768  3 ath9k_common,ath9k,ath9k_hw
mac80211              720896  1 ath9k
asus_nb_wmi            24576  0 
asus_wmi               24576  1 asus_nb_wmi
sparse_keymap          16384  2 acer_wmi,asus_wmi
cfg80211              540672  4 ath,ath9k_common,ath9k,mac80211
wmi                    20480  4 acer_wmi,mxm_wmi,nouveau,asus_wmi
video                  20480  4 i915,acer_wmi,nouveau,asus_wmi


$ cat /sys/class/dmi/id/product_name
X450JB

Any help will be appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

You have a wrong platform driver acer-wmi.

If you did not start it manually, this must be a bug with a wrong detection of the laptop vendor. This should be reported as a bug by

ubuntu-bug linux

As a workaround you can disable this driver by

sudo modprobe -r acer_wmi