# TP LINK has no power when plugged in



## fnucc (Dec 30, 2011)

Well, this is weird. TP LINK Wireless USB is plugged in PC and when a) I boot Windows it works b) when I boot BSD it has not power (the LED is not blinking). Anybody has any clue?


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## wblock@ (Dec 30, 2011)

Could be it doesn't do anything until the right driver is loaded.  Could be that it need a USB quirk or workaround.  Check /var/log/messages.  It would also be helpful to know the model number.  From that, we might be able to identify the chipset and then the driver it needs.


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## fnucc (Dec 30, 2011)

Thank you for the very fast answer. It's TP-LINK TL-WN422G High Gain 54MBps. What's the chipset I have no idea at all.


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## fnucc (Dec 30, 2011)

And one more thing: Since I hasn't been able to install anything under FreeBSD I installed PC-BSD, which is the same thing, but now all windows and taskbar are gone and I can't access anything. That's very frustrating.


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## wblock@ (Dec 30, 2011)

The label on the bottom should show whether it's version 1 or 2.

Version 1 is a ZyDAS 1211.  See zyd(4).
Version 2 is an Atheros AR9271.  uath(4) might support that in 11g mode.  Otherwise, see ndisgen(8).


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## wblock@ (Dec 30, 2011)

fnucc said:
			
		

> And one more thing: Since I hasn't been able to install anything under FreeBSD I installed PC-BSD, which is the same thing, but now all windows and taskbar are gone and I can't access anything. That's very frustrating.



For best results, start a new thread for different subjects.  But you might want to ask about that on the PCBSD forums.


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## fnucc (Dec 30, 2011)

The label below says that it's made in China  nothing else. Are you telling me that I should compile driver or kernel?


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## fnucc (Dec 30, 2011)

And I apologize for this with disappearing windows.


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## wblock@ (Dec 30, 2011)

It's not necessary to compile either a kernel or driver.  First, see the TP-LINK page on identifying the version.


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## fnucc (Dec 30, 2011)

Well, I'm blind as a bat  It is V2.


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## fnucc (Dec 31, 2011)

I took a shot of the screen, literary, and as you can see usbconfig lists the device, but network manager sees only Ethernet card. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/3/usbconfig.jpg/  and http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/100/networkmanager.jpg/


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## fnucc (Dec 31, 2011)

Now I connected Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Honeycomb and turned on it's tethering. Still, it's on the usbconfig list but not in the network manager. Does anyone has some experience with Android? I thought it may be: computer via USB via Galaxy via wireless router.


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## wblock@ (Dec 31, 2011)

V2 has an Atheros chipset with no native drivers, so the only option is ndisgen(8).  That's a link to the man page.


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## fnucc (Jan 1, 2012)

Thank you for the link. I run *ndisgen* but now it wants source code. I started download of the whole system and I'll try to run it again when I burn a DVD with source code on it.


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## wblock@ (Jan 1, 2012)

fnucc said:
			
		

> Thank you for the link. I run ndisgen but now it wants source code. I started download of the whole system and I'll try to run it again when I burn a DVD with source code on it.



A DVD is not necessary.  csup(1) or freebsd-update(8) can both retrieve the source code from the FreeBSD servers.


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## fnucc (Jan 1, 2012)

OK, I managed to copy the source code, run *ndisgen* (there were some syntax errors but I managed to find out where), and I ran *kldload*. Now, *usbconfig* still sees it as an ugen (that's a generic USB device if I'm right) and network manager still doesn't recognize it.


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## wblock@ (Jan 1, 2012)

After loading the driver, reconnect the USB stick.  Make sure to use the Windows XP driver with ndisgen(8).  Sorry, I don't have much else to suggest.


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## fnucc (Jan 1, 2012)

Nothing to be sorry about, you helped me a lot. I think it won't work. I used XP drivers (64-bit because I installed 64-bit BSD), did *kldload* driver and *kldload* ndis and if_ndis. However, dmesg doesn't show "ndis0: ...", there are no ndis devices, so I'm stuck now.


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## fnucc (Jan 2, 2012)

Okie, dokie, the adventure continues. *usbconfig* shows that my TP-LINK with beautiful Atheros chip is on ugen4. Now, dmesg says 
	
	



```
root mount waiting for: ugen4
```
 Any idea how to mount it?


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## wblock@ (Jan 3, 2012)

On boot, it tries to mount devices for the root filesystem.  Have you tried to boot with the TP-LINK attached before?  Or maybe the NDIS driver managed to initialize the hardware, just not enough to work.


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## fnucc (Jan 3, 2012)

First, I'm sorry for not formatting my post properly. I tried manual boot (kldload) and reboot, with the device attached before boot and after it. The result was the same. I tried drivers for XP 64 and winx64, no result. I'm starting to think that this wireless chipset will not work on my system.


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## wblock@ (Jan 3, 2012)

There are a couple of ways to go.  If you're determined and have some time, the freebsd-wireless mailing list is very helpful.  There is a Linux driver which could be rewritten or adapted.  Also see http://wiki.freebsd.org/dev/ath_hal(4)/HardwareSupport.

The faster approach is to replace it with some better-supported chipset.  I've successfully replaced internal mini PCIe cards, but don't have any external wireless adapters at all.


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## fnucc (Jan 3, 2012)

There are probably three chipsets in the whole world that don't work with FreeBSD and I have one of them  I'll through those links to see is there any solution and I wonder is there any generic driver that can be modified. I believe I'll try to find a wireless card instead of this USB stick but I don't give up, I'll make it work sooner or later.


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## fnucc (Jan 3, 2012)

It's interesting that Atheros on its website states that AR9271 has Linux drivers. I'll go a bit deeper into it.


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## fnucc (Jan 3, 2012)

In the meantime I found an old D-Link DWL-G510 pci card which is recognized by the FreeBSD. Well, I think it it. It is "associated", Update works (says that the system is updated) but AppCaffe says the network connection is not OK. I must figure out now what's wrong, hopefully just some settings.


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## fnucc (Jan 3, 2012)

HELLO from Firefox under FreeBSD! Yes!


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## wblock@ (Jan 3, 2012)

I've had success with two or three Atheros chipsets, RAlink (ral(4)) (I think, can't recall what it was in), and Realtek 8187 (urtw(4)).  Have only had old Intel cards to try, but they mostly work.

Atheros is good, probably the best supported on FreeBSD, but only for some chipsets.  I've even used an Atheros AR5008 in 802.11n mode with FreeBSD 9 and Adrian Chadd's new work.


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## fnucc (Jan 3, 2012)

Yes, it's weird, one would expect that all chips by one manufacturer work but that's obviously not the case. I found this old pci card, I think it's 2.5 years old and one reboot was enough for it to come to life, a bit of messing around with password to my router and that's it. Life is a bit easier now when I can surf without starting Win7 or using Galaxy Tab


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