Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter — Ubuntu 14.04

Question

After the upgrade of my laptop to 14.04, I have problems to enable the Wi-Fi.

My Wireless card is

01:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0036] (rev 01)

I had tried the "tricks" from here and here but nothing worked. The proposed solutions applied for 12.04 so I believe that's why I am not able to enable the Wireless.

I tried also the below:

sudo rfkill unblock all
sudo rfkill list

but with no luck..

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: yes
1: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

I tried also with the Super+F12 and/or Fn+F12 but the message is the same in "Network manager":

Wi-Fi is disabled by hardware switch

From all the above it seems that the hardware is blocked (somehow). From bios I also enabled whatever related with "Wi-Fi/WLAN" but again no luck.

The result of lsmod is:

Module                  Size  Used by
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     46207  1 
snd_hda_codec_realtek    61438  1 
joydev                 17381  0 
ath3k                  13318  0 
btusb                  32412  0 
intel_rapl             18773  0 
coretemp               13435  0 
kvm_intel             143060  0 
snd_hda_intel          52355  3 
snd_hda_codec         192906  3 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel
rfcomm                 69160  8 
snd_hwdep              13602  1 snd_hda_codec
bnep                   19624  2 
snd_pcm               102099  3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
bluetooth             395423  23 bnep,ath3k,btusb,rfcomm
uvcvideo               80885  0 
rts5139               335409  0 
kvm                   451511  1 kvm_intel
videobuf2_vmalloc      13216  1 uvcvideo
snd_page_alloc         18710  2 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel
videobuf2_memops       13362  1 videobuf2_vmalloc
videobuf2_core         40664  1 uvcvideo
videodev              134688  2 uvcvideo,videobuf2_core
arc4                   12608  2 
crct10dif_pclmul       14289  0 
crc32_pclmul           13113  0 
snd_seq_midi           13324  0 
snd_seq_midi_event     14899  1 snd_seq_midi
ghash_clmulni_intel    13259  0 
ath9k                 164164  0 
cryptd                 20359  1 ghash_clmulni_intel
ath9k_common           13551  1 ath9k
snd_rawmidi            30144  1 snd_seq_midi
ath9k_hw              453856  2 ath9k_common,ath9k
snd_seq                61560  2 snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq_midi
ath                    28698  3 ath9k_common,ath9k,ath9k_hw
snd_seq_device         14497  3 snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_timer              29482  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
mac80211              626489  1 ath9k
psmouse               102222  0 
serio_raw              13462  0 
i915                  783485  2 
snd                    69238  17 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_device,snd_seq_midi
drm_kms_helper         52758  1 i915
cfg80211              484040  3 ath,ath9k,mac80211
drm                   302817  3 i915,drm_kms_helper
soundcore              12680  1 snd
i2c_algo_bit           13413  1 i915
toshiba_acpi           22901  0 
sparse_keymap          13948  1 toshiba_acpi
toshiba_bluetooth      12852  0 
video                  19476  1 i915
wmi                    19177  1 toshiba_acpi
parport_pc             32701  0 
mac_hid                13205  0 
ppdev                  17671  0 
lp                     17759  0 
parport                42348  3 lp,ppdev,parport_pc
nls_iso8859_1          12713  1 
hid_generic            12548  0 
usbhid                 52616  0 
hid                   106148  2 hid_generic,usbhid
r8169                  67581  0 
mii                    13934  1 r8169
ahci                   25819  4 
libahci                32168  1 ahci

Does anyone have an idea what else should be done in order to enable my Wireless card?

Is there any backport software from which i can pull the necessary driver or is already included in linux-kernel?

Thanks in advance!

Pavlos

Answer 1

I had the same problem, found a solution on a forum and it worked for me. I am using a Toshiba Satellite L750 with Qualcomm Atheros AR9585 and my wi-fi was hardware blocked. So I did what was said in that forum. I simply rebooted and immediately I pressed my wi-fi activation keyboard combination (FN+F8) and the led for wi-fi turned on and so my wi-fi was hardware unblocked.

Answer 2

I've got the similar problem with ath9k driver.
I solved this problem with a workaround that I found here.

echo "options asus_nb_wmi wapf=4" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/asus_nb_wmi.conf

This command that I've inserted above change the default behavior of ath9k.
After this change I noticed a strange things because network led indicator says that I'm offline, but I can go online through my wireless network card.

I hope this could help you.