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I have a laptop with a built-in network card that stopped working. Until upgrading to Ubuntu 18.04, I could use a USB card instead, but in Gnome it seems I can not enable/disable the network interfaces one by one. If I connect to a network both interfaces try to connect, leaving the system without a working condition.

For reference, here is an old question on how to disable a network interface permanently, but that seems to work only for older Ubuntu versions: How to disable built-in wifi and use only USB wifi card?

Edit: 

$ lspci -nnk | grep net

<snip>

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002b] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Lite-On Communications Inc AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [11ad:6613]
leo
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  • I think the method in the link is entirely valid. Let's identify the driver we need to blacklist for the internal device. Please edit your question to add the result of the terminal command: lspci -nnk | grep 0280 -A3 – chili555 May 29 '18 at 14:44
  • I think what I used to do is just rfkill the internal PCI-e wifi card, and only then plug in USB, otherwise my laptop would get stuck. – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy May 29 '18 at 15:24
  • @chili555 Thanks, I probably just didn't understand what to look for then. I edited to add the output of lspci --nnk. Greping for 0280-A3 didn't return anything – leo May 29 '18 at 17:34
  • why dont you remove physically the wifi adapter? – cmak.fr May 29 '18 at 17:51
  • I will answer in some depth to help the searchers. – chili555 May 29 '18 at 18:06
  • @chili555 thank you, that explains what's going on. – leo May 29 '18 at 19:11
  • @cmak.fr Because it's a laptop, and it's can be tricky to remove components without bricking it :) – leo May 29 '18 at 19:13

2 Answers2

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You ran the terminal command:

lspci -nnk

You found your wireless device:

Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002b]

We search for the device ID 168c:002b and find, among others: https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Arcadyan_WN7811A

It reports:

Probable Linux driver ath9k

You can verify that this is the module that is loaded with:

lsmod | grep ath

If so, let's unload and blacklist the driver:

sudo -i
modprobe -r ath9k
echo "blacklist ath9k"  >>  /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
exit

You should be all set.

chili555
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  • Note that the wifi card will not be unpowered but just unusable because the drivers will not load on boot. If you type sudo modprobe ath9k after boot, the card will be usable again. To complete disable a pci device you should do it through acpi call. – velix May 29 '18 at 18:16
  • @velix, can you elaborate? – mLstudent33 Sep 23 '20 at 05:33
  • That link is not working. Mine is (base) nobu@gold3forever:~$ lspci -nnk | grep net 00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (Lewisville) [8086:1502] (rev 04) – mLstudent33 Sep 23 '20 at 05:39
  • I found out my driver code name is e1000e here: https://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/E1000E.html. So I did everything but it did not do anything. – mLstudent33 Sep 23 '20 at 05:52
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    @mLstudent33 Please start your own new question. Also, e1000e is an ethernet driver, not wifi. – chili555 Sep 23 '20 at 15:16
2

I had a similar problem and my solution was to go in the settings of my pci network card and make it forget all of my networks so it won't connect automatically. That way my usb dongle connects automatically to the network and my pci network card stays unconnected but it's still functionnal if need be.

Émanuel
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