RTL8821CE and wifi problems

[newpet]

Hello all,

I need some help with my problematic HP 240 laptop. My system:

- FP64-9.5
- kernel 6.5.2-rock-rt8
- rtl8821ce-fossa64k5453

My laptop worked fine for many months, but one day for some reason it no longer turned on. I had to replace the whole MB with a brand new one.
Oddly enough, my wireless card is not recognized anymore by FP64, whereas it works flawless under Win10.
Bios is updated and set up properly.
Motherboard and cpu are identical to the ones replaced. Wifi card is the original one.

Any suggestions?

Regards

[ozsouth]

@newpet - wireless drivers are kernel-specific. Seems you changed your kernel to 6.5.2-rock-rt8 from the old 5.4.53, so your old driver is unnecessary & may clash - should not be needed as 6.x kernels usually have rtw88 drivers compiled in, which usually run rtl8821ce.
However, I had hangup problems on my PC with rtl8821ce under 6.x & had to resort to a 5.x kernel, as did another forum member recently.
To test, in a terminal, run: lsmod | grep rtw (that's a lowercase L to start & pipe symbol in middle - usually shift & \ key).
That should tell you if rtw88 is loaded.
To be absolutely sure of your wireless chip, in a terminal run: lspci -nn | grep etwork
Please post the outputs here.

Also, are you working on studio audio recording (where a real-time kernel is highly desirable)?
If not, there are many other kernels in the forum Kernel section which could be useful, including the recent 5.15.147 (which has an rtl8821ce driver .pet in the forum Drivers section), or - if you really need a low-latency kernel, I have some of those I can send you a link for.

[newpet]

@ozsouth - Hi ozsouth, thank you for your quick response.

First of all, I want to point out a couple of things, that I think are useful to better understand the problem:

- I use a 'live' usb pendrive with a write-protection switch, in order to prevent it from being written (read only)
- No changes have been made to the 'live' since the previous motherboard worked. That's why it is hard to understand.

I changed my kernel to 6.5.2-rock-rt8 (from native 5.4.53) several months ago just for testing and, since it worked fine, I left it that way.
Actually, I wouldn't need a real time kernel nor a low latency one, I mainly use the notebook for office applications, mails and browsing.
I'm aware, as observed in the past, that this particular wireless card is a bit challenging, with linux at least.
Given the above, any alternative working kernel would be ok then. Feel free to suggest me your first (and updated) choice

[ozsouth]

@newpet - Ok, assuming you are continuing with fossapup64_9.5 ,

I suggest the kernel & driver I am using on my Celeron N3350 laptop, with rtl8821ce wifi:

kernel 5.15.147: https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linu ... ao.tar.bz2

(I assume you know what to do with file above, but in case not, cd into folder containing .bz2 file & run:
tar -jxvf huge-5.15.147-ubun64oz-ao.tar.bz2
Then rename kernel-modules.sfs ... file to zdrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs ; vmlinuz-5.15.147 ... to vmlinuz & replace originals)

The matching wifi driver pet is in the forum Drivers section, Once you load it, you would need a save file to retain it.
Since that's not what you are doing, I have a ydrv (which I use) which will install & load the driver. (edit: link expired).

Once downloaded, move into same folder as puppy_fossapup64_9.5.sfs & reboot. Hopefully, once booted, you should be
able to connect to wireless. I personally use frisbee to connect as I find it more stable. Again assuming you haven't used it,
once started, click on wireless ssid you want to connect to & double-click connect, fill in passkey & ok.

[Jasper]

This worked for me

@ozsouth

Do not forget the "stay on" script too

[newpet]

@ozsouth
Great support! Surgical and granular. Everything works like a charm now.
For those who experience issues like this, keep in mind that sometimes frisbee won't work when launched first, I mean once installed oz kernel with ydrv mentioned above. Therefore let 'simple network manager' run first, followed by frisbee since then on, then save. Next boot frisbee will work fine. Also, don't forget to delete/rename/overwrite previous kernel/s.
Hard to figure out what caused the malfunction. But all's well that ends well

Thank you ozmouth