tplink wn722n and interternal wifi card

Question

Hello fellow ubunuites... I have managed to get my new TP-LINKwn722n working great on my Asus UL50v laptop and running ubuntu 14.04 using this thread:

How to install driver for TP-Link TL-WN722N on Ubuntu 14.04? (very well done tutorial)

my question is when I unplug it to use my internal wifi the internal no longer works. Is there a way to use both? and if not, I need help getting my internal back. I only installed it here to see if it worked. I'm guessing it has something to do with drivers but not sure where to start. would like the ability to use either one but preferably internal. I believe I read somewhere that you could run both cards in parallel, so if thats an option that would be awesome. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Relevant excerpt of the output of lspci:

03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1000 [Condor Peak]

ifconfig wl

wl: error fetching interface information: Device not found

lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by
cdc_acm                27963  0 
nls_iso8859_1          12617  0 
usb_storage            48417  0 
ctr                    12905  0 
ccm                    17496  0 
arc4                   12536  0 
nvram                  14027  0 
bnep                   18895  2 
rfcomm                 53664  0 
bluetooth             342208  10 bnep,rfcomm
binfmt_misc            13140  1 
uvcvideo               71309  0 
videobuf2_vmalloc      13048  1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_memops       13170  1 videobuf2_vmalloc
videobuf2_core         39258  1 uvcvideo
videodev              108503  2 uvcvideo,videobuf2_core
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     45440  4 
kvm_intel             132589  0 
kvm                   388117  1 kvm_intel
snd_hda_codec_realtek    55163  1 
snd_hda_intel          42730  5 
snd_hda_codec         164067  3 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep              13272  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                85501  3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
joydev                 17101  0 
serio_raw              13230  0 
snd_page_alloc         14230  2 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel
snd_seq_midi           13132  0 
snd_seq_midi_event     14475  1 snd_seq_midi
dm_multipath           22402  0 
scsi_dh                14458  1 dm_multipath
snd_rawmidi            25135  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                55383  2 snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_device         14137  3 snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_midi
lpc_ich                16864  0 
snd_timer              28584  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
iwlwifi               152049  0 
snd                    60939  21 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_device,snd_seq_midi
soundcore              12600  1 snd
asus_laptop            23897  0 
sparse_keymap          13708  1 asus_laptop
input_polldev          13648  1 asus_laptop
mac_hid                13037  0 
parport_pc             31981  0 
ppdev                  17391  0 
ath9k_htc              52045  0 
ath9k                  86133  0 
ath9k_common           20781  2 ath9k,ath9k_htc
ath9k_hw              405068  3 ath9k_common,ath9k,ath9k_htc
ath                    24182  4 ath9k_common,ath9k,ath9k_htc,ath9k_hw
mac80211              486135  2 ath9k,ath9k_htc
cfg80211              430577  6 ath,iwlwifi,ath9k_common,ath9k,mac80211,ath9k_htc
compat                 13617  5 cfg80211,ath9k_common,ath9k,mac80211,ath9k_htc
coretemp               13195  0 
lp                     13299  0 
parport                40836  3 lp,ppdev,parport_pc
dm_mirror              21756  0 
dm_region_hash         20121  1 dm_mirror
dm_log                 18072  2 dm_region_hash,dm_mirror
hid_generic            12492  0 
usbhid                 47070  0 
hid                    87604  2 hid_generic,usbhid
mxm_wmi                12893  0 
psmouse                91329  0 
ahci                   25579  3 
libahci                27214  1 ahci
atl1c                  40949  0 
wmi                    18673  1 mxm_wmi
i915                  747189  4 
video                  18903  1 i915
i2c_algo_bit           13197  1 i915
drm_kms_helper         49002  1 i915
drm                   245099  6 i915,drm_kms_helper

What's the internal WiFi adapter? Can you [edit] you question to include the output of lspci? — David Foerster, Oct 15 '14 at 01:27
Your internal WiFi adapter from Intel should work flawlessly out of the box. Why aren't you using that all along? Can you provide the output of ifconfig wl and lsmod after unplugging the external WiFi adapter? — David Foerster, Oct 15 '14 at 10:40
the internal wifi did work. i installed the tp link to 1 see if it worked and 2 possibly be able to use either one. ive edited my original post with the info you were asking about. — Brian Pearson, Oct 16 '14 at 00:48
Can you try running lsmod | grep -oe '^ath\S*' | sudo xargs modprobe -r iwlwifi && sudo modprobe iwlwifi and see if the Intel WiFi can be “revived“ like this? — David Foerster, Oct 16 '14 at 01:11
rmmod: ERROR: missing module name. modprobe: FATAL: Error running remove command for iwlwifi and I unplugged the ext wifi before running. — Brian Pearson, Oct 16 '14 at 02:26
Huh? That's odd. Can you try again with lsmod | grep -oe '^ath\S*' | sudo -- xargs -t -- modprobe -rv iwlwifi && sudo modprobe -v iwlwifi and upload the output somewhere for us to see? — David Foerster, Oct 16 '14 at 02:57
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cnzk02vhh3z1oir/iwlwifi%20term%20output?dl=0 — Brian Pearson, Oct 16 '14 at 03:58
Everything about the intermediary commands seems in order. I don't know why there's such a strange error message. Oh well… you seem to have resolved the issue anyway. — David Foerster, Oct 16 '14 at 09:02

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 16 '14 at 09:31

OK.. all I needed to do was rebuild the driver for iwlwifi using the backport I installed the ath9k with for the external wifi using the tutorial from the link in my original post.

At the location of backport folder (in my case cd /home/sl43/backports-3.16-1):

make defconfig-iwlwifi
make
sudo make install

sudo modprobe iwlwifi
sudo reboot

David thank you for your help. you encouraged me to dig around a bit and after reading through this post: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2248612, about 3/4 of the way down, I just applied the commands to my situation.

tplink wn722n and interternal wifi card

1 Answers1