Trouble installing killer WiFi firmware

Q&A
1

Hello all!
I am attempting to setup WiFi on a Dell XPS 13 9300. The card in question is a Killer AX1650.

I found this page from killer that seems to indicate I should be able to use the Intel® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz firmware found here.

I have downloaded said firmware and placed it into /etc/firmware/ but this has not seemed to resolve my problem.

The first thing that is confusing me is that when running
modinfo iwlwifi | grep firmware
I am not seeing the new firmware I added show up in the list:

firmware:       iwlwifi-100-5.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-1000-5.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-135-6.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-105-6.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-2030-6.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-2000-6.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-5150-2.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-6000g2b-6.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-6000g2a-6.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-6050-5.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-6000-6.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-7265D-29.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-7265-17.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-3168-29.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-3160-17.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-7260-17.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-8265-36.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-8000C-36.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-9260-th-b0-jf-b0-46.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-9000-pu-b0-jf-b0-46.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-so-a0-gf-a0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-so-a0-hr-b0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-so-a0-jf-b0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-cc-a0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-QuQnj-b0-jf-b0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-QuZ-a0-jf-b0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-QuZ-a0-hr-b0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-Qu-b0-jf-b0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-Qu-c0-hr-b0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-QuQnj-a0-hr-a0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-QuQnj-b0-hr-b0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-QuQnj-f0-hr-a0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-Qu-a0-jf-b0-52.ucode
firmware:       iwlwifi-Qu-a0-hr-a0-52.ucode
parm:           fw_restart:restart firmware in case of error (default true) (bool)
parm:           fw_monitor:firmware monitor - to debug FW (default: false - needs lots of memory) (bool)

Nor do I see any attempt to load the firmware when starting up. Here is what I pulled from dmesg:

 [   54.045870] calling  iwl_drv_init+0x0/0x1000 [iwlwifi] @ 516
[   54.045997] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[   54.049419] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-52.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049568] initcall iwl_drv_init+0x0/0x1000 [iwlwifi] returned 0 after 628 usecs
[   54.049582] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-51.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049605] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-50.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049621] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-49.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049637] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-48.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049783] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-47.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049804] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-46.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049820] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-45.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049835] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-44.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049851] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-43.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049868] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-42.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049884] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-41.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049899] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-40.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049914] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-39.ucode failed with error -2
[   54.049916] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: no suitable firmware found!
[   54.050714] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: minimum version required: iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-39
[   54.051546] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: maximum version supported: iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-52
[   54.052403] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: check git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git

I’m still pretty new to linux so reading through this nothing is standing out to me, wondering I could get some help narrowing down the problem.

1 Like
2

my post is mostlikely not very helpful.
But it seems that Killer AX1650 is supported in newer Kernels out of the box. The link you have provided shows how to backport it for older not supported Kernels in that case < 5.1.
With Clear Linux - you have always the most recent stable Kernel (if you havent config lts kernels)
So today you should have Kernel 5.5.13-924.native
The firmware should also be always the most recent on Clear Linux provided by git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git
Maybe as mentioned in the Link for Kernels 5.4+ there is still a bug concerning this wifi interface.

Redhat users also have issues with 5.5+
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1727457

I assume you have tried to use it out of the box without installing any firmware by hand?

you could try to switch to the lts kernel which is 5.4
https://clearlinux.org/software/bundle/kernel-lts

  • Validate the installed kernel is kernel-lts by checking the output of the uname -r command. It should end in .lts or .lts2018 .

uname -r .lts

If the running kernel is not lts : install the LTS kernel manually, update the bootloader, and check again:

sudo swupd bundle-add kernel-lts
clr-boot-manager set-kernel $(basename $(realpath /usr/lib/kernel/default-lts))
clr-boot-manager update reboot

found here https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/get-started/virtual-machine-install/virtualbox-cl-installer.html#install-cl-on-the-vb-vm

1 Like
3

Thanks for the info that is worth a shot! I’ll try rolling back the kernel when I get off work today and update the thread with the results.

4

btw just found this Killer Wifi driver fails to load · Issue #1568 · clearlinux/distribution · GitHub

1 Like
5

That did the trick! Switching to LTS kernel ended up creating more problems than it fixed, but I was able to get it working by following the steps in https://gitlab.com/emrose/xps13-7390_debian/issues/5#note_240886447.

Specifically what I ended up doing was using the drivers from intel, placing them in /lib/firmware and sym linking them to iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-50.ucode

1 Like
6

Great to hear that you did it!