Driver Installed but Wifi still not working?

Hardware Support
1

I’ve just finished building a new PC. I installed Zorin 16 Pro on it a few days ago with no issues.

I was able to use the built-in Wifi card on my motherboard just fine while installing and after installing the OS… but now, it suddenly isn’t working?

Since the initial install, I’ve installed Windows to duel boot on a separate SSD.
I decided that since I hadn’t done much on the OS so I would just wipe the drive and reinstall… but even after a fresh install Wifi still isn’t working.

I double checked my BIOS, confirmed that secure boot was still disabled, confirmed that in windows the Wifi is working.

When I run lshw, I see both my Ethernet ports and the Wifi 6 AX200, with the iwlwifi driver… so I’m not sure why I cannot get wifi to work… please help?

(Also, note that I am still trying to learn Linux… Zorin is my first distro, so please be patient with me. Thanks in advance)

2

You must ensure that Fast Boot is disabled on Windows. It locks the drive. Fast Boot (Or Fast Startup) is usable only when Windows OS is the only OS on the system.

If the above doesn't fix the issue, you can try:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-hwe-team/backport-iwlwifi

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install backport-iwlwifi-dkms

3

Thank you for your reply.

I've disabled Fast Boot in my BIOS, and ran both commands (both ran successfully), but still don't have wifi access.

4

Strange... either of those drivers definitely should work on Wifi 6 AX200.
The device works properly in Windows, right?

5

Yes that is correct. On windows I can use Wi-Fi without issue

6

I messed with configs in modprobe.d earlier while troubleshooting. Any chance what I changed there could be causing the issue now?

7

I went ahead and reverted the changes I made in modprobe.d; it had no effect.

8

Were you doing this due to lack of wifi?
Or for something else?
You can check your blacklist to see if anything was added to it:

cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

And the contents of iwlwifi.conf

cat /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf

9

It's the strangest thing... I woke up this morning and it just started working again? Made no other changes since last night... ghosts in the shell I guess?

1 Like
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I love this...

This would concern me, actually.
While it seems nice, things do not fix themselves.
In Mechanical, if the brakes or engine are making a funny noise and a person keeps driving and the noise stops, they often think "it fixed itself."
No, the problem most likely just got worse.

If your Wifi stopped working and all software and driver efforts did not restore it, then it started working again on its own - this is a classic sign that the Wifi card hardware is starting to fail.

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You see, that's what I was starting to suspect too. Only issue is that this motherboard is brand new. Of course, it's not out of the question there could be a random defect or whatever... but this is a $400 board, not some cheap starter piece. Additionally, If it was hardware, it wouldn't have worked in Windows either, right?

I'll keep an eye out for more weirdness and report back if it goes out again in the next week or so.

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Strangely, no. Linux is more sensitive to hardware errors, revealing issues more quickly than Windows does.
You can see this all over the forum, where Windows seemed to think a Hard Drive was fine, but in Linux, you could see it failing.
Hopefully the card is fine...
But... if it was me, I would be looking at a quick and easy Wifi Dongle on Amazon, just in case....

13

Can you provide us with the make and model of the motherboard please?

14

Very interesting, good to know! Thank you~

ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (Wi-fi)

15

Whilst not the same board, I suspect your wifi is not working because it needs Ubuntu 21.04 for it to work - Zorin 16 is based on 20.04:

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This could be tested by comparing Wifi against a LiveUSB of Zorin and a LiveUSB of Ubuntu 21.04.

I must admit to some doubts, though, as the user said that Wifi was working previously on Zorin OS.

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The more I think about it, the more I believe It might have been the fastboot thing. This post describes almost exactly what I went through.

It's very possible that I never gave the machine a full shutdown (IE just restarting/clicking shutdown and immediately powering up after I see my fans loose power... Gotta go fast because brain said so).
By not letting my caps to drain fully (or whatever else happens) I bet my drive stayed in that weird glitchy state caused by fastboot, so no matter what I did that evening, it never got better... but after giving up and shutting down my PC for the night, it was able to fully power cycle and the problem resolved?

Obviously, I'm not an expert (yet), but I haven't had issues with it since; and choosing to believe this story means my hardware doesn't have an issue :slight_smile:

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I quoted this line simply because it is such quotable material.

1 Like
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