How do I get an Ralink 3290 wireless card to work?

Question

I have followed the instructions here: How do I get a Ralink RT3290 wireless card working? And a few other places: http://droid-hive.com/index.php?/topic/1272-how-to-install-ralink-rt3290-wireless-drivers-on-ubuntu-1204/

As of now, my system SEES the wireless device but is unable to enable it. It appears to be locked in the off position in the network manager and I am unable to connect to anything.

Here is my lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Ivy Bridge DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Ivy Bridge Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Panther Point High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev c4)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev c4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point 6 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Panther Point SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 Network controller: Ralink corp. Device 3290
01:00.1 Bluetooth: Ralink corp. Device 3298
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 05)
03:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 5229 (rev 01)

When I run ifconfig, I see this:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 38:ea:a7:f0:ac:9d  
      inet addr:192.168.1.145  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
      inet6 addr: 2002:4ac1:25d6:0:3aea:a7ff:fef0:ac9d/64 Scope:Global
      inet6 addr: fe80::3aea:a7ff:fef0:ac9d/64 Scope:Link
      UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
      RX packets:29345 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:17847 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
      RX bytes:40090222 (40.0 MB)  TX bytes:1727944 (1.7 MB)
      Interrupt:42 Base address:0x4000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
      inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
      inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
      UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
      RX packets:722 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:722 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
      RX bytes:66926 (66.9 KB)  TX bytes:66926 (66.9 KB)

iwconfig yields this:

lo        no wireless extensions.

ra0       Ralink STA  

eth0      no wireless extensions.

I am running an HP Pavilion G6 with an i5 CPU and UEFI bios (it came preloaded with Windows 8, sadly). I really need help getting this wireless card up and running as my company intends to use this machine as a platform for development personnel. Thanks in advance for the help! It is greatly appreciated

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 13 '13 at 18:24

2

To fix this, all I did was clone the kernel firmware git repo, copy rt3290.bin from the firmware repo to /lib/firmware, and upgrade the kernel to 3.6.11.

This fix only works on Ubuntu 12.04.

edited Sep 13 '13 at 18:24

Jorge Castro

71,754

answered Apr 01 '13 at 13:54

Andrew Rhyne

181
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2
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How do I get an Ralink 3290 wireless card to work?

1 Answers1