Issue with wifi and bluetooth on Intel ax210 on Razer Blade 15 2021 advanced model; ubuntu 20.04 LTS

[jakiroshah]

Dear Sir/Madam,

I presently have Ubuntu 20.04 installed on a 2021 Razer Blade Advanced (dual boot) which contains the Intel AX210 wifi and bluetooth card. I found that the default 5.8 kernel was not supported and so I tried 5.10.0, 5.10.32, 5.11.14, 5.11.16 kernels.

For all these kernels, the bluetooth would constantly flicker on-off but the Wifi did connect. The issue with the Wifi was not entirely resolved though because the Wifi would randomly disconnect and it would take a reboot to reconnect to an existing network. So, I downloaded the newly released linux-firmware (commit number : fa0efeff) and installed the files into /lib/firmware. This fixed the bluetooth issue for kernels 5.11.14 and 5.11.16 but the Wifi entirely stopped working. In kernels 5.10.0 and 5.10.32 also stopped showing the Wifi option and while the bluetooth flickering stopped, it did not switch-on to look for any available bluetooth devices.

This seems to be a reoccurring issue over the past several months. Many folks in the community have experienced similar issues and none of the "work-arounds" have been consistent. I am seriously suffering from the delay in finding a fix to this problem and sincerely request you to look into this as soon as possible.

[Victor_G_Intel]

Hello jakiroshah,

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities.

To better assist you please provide the following report and information to continue.

Intel® System Support Utility (Intel® SSU)

Download link: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26735/Intel-System-Support-Utility-for-the-Linux-Operating-System

Instructions:

https://downloadmirror.intel.com/26735/eng/ReleaseNotes.txt

1. Have you checked if this issue happens on different networks and different bands?
2. Is this the original adapter that came pre-installed in your system?
3. Have you tried with the kernel and firmware combination that we recommend for this adapter?
4. Have you tested this issue with Windows?
5. Did you make sure Ubuntu was a compatible OS for the laptop by contacting Razer directly?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Victor G.

Intel Technical Support Technician 

[jakiroshah]

Dear Victor,

Thank you so much for looking into this and for your quick response. I tried using the tool you shared but it seems that the tool is not supported on the ubuntu architecture I have installed presently (20.04, kernel 5.11.16). The scan fails with the message "/bin/ping/: usage error: Destination address required".

To answer the other questions you posted:

1. The issue presently is that there is no "wifi" option in the settings. So, I am unable to ping from the terminal, and unfortunately, I do not have access to a wired connection to test for ethernet. But, I must note that before updating to the linux-firmware (commit number : fa0efeff), I was able to connect to at least 3 different networks/routers.
   
2. This is the original adapter -- no alterations have been made.
3. As mentioned earlier, I tried a bunch of kernels 5.10.0, 5.10.32, 5.11.14, 5.11.16; all of which fall under the 5.10+ category in combination with the file iwlwifi-ty-59.601f3a66.0.tgz. Before updating to linux-firmware (commit number : fa0efeff), installing this file helped connect with wifi but the connection was unstable (i.e. it would randomly disconnect and would need a reboot to connect with any existing networks). Now, I am not sure which version of linux-firmware I should install so that the Wifi option shows in the settings.
4. None of these issues exist with Windows -- both wifi and bluetooth work reliably
5. I have not contacted Razer directly about this, but there are some others in the Intel community that have been successful at implementing the "work-around" of installing 5.10+ kernel albeit without bluetooth functioning or have installed 21.04 with 5.11+ kernel which I cannot afford to because many packages that I work on are not yet available in 21.04.
   Additionally, my colleague has a Razer 2019 model with Ubuntu 18.04 which works really well. I would be surprised if the issue was with anything but software around AX210 -- my hunch also stems from the fact that I did have internet connection until I updated the linux-firmware published on your tree (https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/commit/)

Please do let me know if you'd need any information from my end. Thank you again for looking into this!

[Victor_G_Intel]

Hello Jakiroshah,

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities.

Please follow the steps below and provide us with the outputs needed to continue:

1-Type the following command to the terminal: # lspci to verify that the Intel network controller it’s been identified.

Note: If the output doesn't appear, then the system does not identify the Intel network adapter, and you will need to make sure it's properly integrated.

2-Type the following command to the terminal: # modinfo iwlwifi and let us know if you got an output.

Note: If there is no output, then the module isn’t installed, this will be a distribution installation issue.

3-Please type: # lsmod | grep iwlwifi and let us know if you got an output.

Note: If the result is empty, the driver hasn't been loaded. Most likely to be a distribution issue.

To verify, Please type: # dmesg | grep iwlwifi

Note: If the result is empty, the driver wasn’t initialized, and this is a distribution issue. If the result is populated proceed with the next step.

4-Check whether the suitable firmware is installed:

Please type: # dmesg | grep “no suitable firmware found!”

Notes:

• If the result is not empty, it means that you don’t have a suitable FW (api mentioned in the dmesg).
• Visit here https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/iwlwifi for supported FW, or here https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/ for the latest versions.

5-If none of the above steps help you determine what could be the source of the issue, please provide the following output:

Please type: # dmesg | grep ASSERT

Notes:

•          If the output is empty, please follow this wiki: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/iwlwifi/debugging to extract dmesg and trace-cmd.

•          If the output has value, please collect it from the wiki FW dump too.

6-Please provide the last known good configuration (e.g. Kernel and WLAN FW versions) that AX210 used to work without any problems. Or the Wi-Fi of AX210 never work on Linux?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Victor G.

Intel Technical Support Technician

[jakiroshah]

Dear Victor,

Thank you again for looking into this.

I got responses for all the commands you requested except for "dmesg | grep ASSERT" whose output was empty. I then attempted to follow the link you posted but it seems that trace-cmd is not available on the system by default...so I downloaded the source code but realized that "make" is not available by default either! I am not sure if there is any straightforward means to install make without internet -- this is where I am stuck presently -- none of the links here are working for me.

I have attached a file with all the outputs herewith hoping that it would help -- maybe there are some files in "firmware" under "modinfo iwlwifi" that I could change to resolve this issue? I am certain that the Wifi was working until I downloaded this firmware. After downloading this, my bluetooth started to work but the "wifi" option entirely disappeared from my settings. Maybe you could suggest some other commit that I can download and test on my system?

To answer the last question you asked,I am not sure what WLAN FW specifically refers to but all linux kernels  5.10+ worked for me after I downloaded  iwlwifi-ty-59.601f3a66.0.tgz and copied the file into /lib/firmware.

[DeividA_Intel]

Hello jakiroshah, 

Thank you for the information provided 

I will proceed to check the issue internally and post back soon with more details. 

Best regards, 

Deivid A.  

Intel Customer Support Technician 

[ismataka75]

Dear Victor 

I got the same problem on my razer blade 15 advanced 2018 with archlinux installed. I fixed the problem by renaming  /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0.pnvm file then after restarting my ax210 works correctly. I hope it can help.

Have a nice day

[jakiroshah]

Thank you so much ismataka75!

Dear Victor and Deivid,

I can confirm that renaming the file /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0.pnvm to /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0.ucode appears to the issue! My wifi connection is back and bluetooth is working as well!

[suenteus]

Another confirmation, this solved the wifi hardware detection issue on my Razer Blade 15 Advanced (mid-2021).

Mind you, you must *rename* the file extension from `pnvm` to `ucode` --- at first I tried just making a copy so as not to delete the original file, and the problem still persisted.

Note also that some updates will reinstall the .pnvm file. You must make sure that the .pnvm file does not exist in your /lib/firmware/ directory

[Victor_G_Intel]

Hello jakiroshah,

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities.

We are glad to know that you have found a solution, thank you for taking the time to share this fix.

Hopefully, it may help other community members experiencing similar behavior. Since the thread is now solved, we will proceed to close it.

If you need any additional information, you are more than welcome to submit a new question, Just remember that this thread will no longer be monitored.

@ismataka75 thank you for sharing your fix.

Regards,

Victor G.

Intel Technical Support Technician