Why is my wifi card not recognised on Ubuntu-20.04?

TimoSan

11/15/22, 6:21 AM

I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad T15 G2 which has Windows 10 preinstalled. Next to this, I then installed Ubuntu 20.04. Sadly, the Wireless adapter cannot be found in Ubuntu, while it works perfectly well in Windows 10.

I tried several fixes to get the wireless running in Ubuntu. I re-installed Ubuntu with Ethernet connection so that third party drivers can be installed. I disabled the fast boot mode of Windows. I tried to install drivers via "Software & Updates", but this doesn't work because Ubuntu does not propose drivers if it doesn't see there is a wifi card at all.

By now, I am pretty much out of ideas and also desperate. Do you guys have an idea? According to Windows my Wifi card is "Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160MHz". I can give you more information if you tell me what you need in order to help me solve the problem. So much thanks beforehand.

lspci -knn | grep Net -A3; rfkill list

yields

09:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:2725] (rev 1a)
    Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0020]
    Kernel modules: iwlwifi
0a:00.0 SD Host controller [0805]: Genesys Logic, Inc GL9750 SD Host Controller [17a0:9750] (rev 01)
1: tpacpi_bluetooth_sw: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
2: tpacpi_wwan_sw: Wireless WAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

Update: @guiverc gave me the great hint that it might have something to do with the Linux kernel (5.8) that does not support AX210 card. So the options for me were install a kernel 5.10 or higher myself, or install a newer ubuntu running on a higher kernel.

Given that I am not an experienced Ubuntu user who is confident in setting up kernels (and all the implications), I chose the latter option: I installed Ubuntu-21.04 which runs on Kernel 5.11 and everything worked perfectly from the start. So I assume that the kernel probably really was the problem.

If anyone with the same problem is confident to try the other option (keep Ubuntu-20.04 and update the kernel yourself, this link will be helpful: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS driver Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160MHz).

Thanks again to @guiverc.

0 + 4

wireless

20.04

guiverc

11/15/22, 6:37 AM

You've not provided specific details as to which 20.04 you installed? Desktop? Server? which stack you opted to use; though currently the HWE stack is still on 5.8 and soon to move to 5.11 which will probably suit you well.

TimoSan

11/15/22, 6:43 AM

This link looks very promising, thanks a lot @guiverc. I'll try it out and report back.

guiverc

11/15/22, 6:48 AM

fyi: ideally you'd be upgrading to the 5.11 kernel already/now; but a blocker bug in one architecture has stopped it from propagating for now..

Jeremy31

11/15/22, 10:17 AM

If you installed backports-iwlwifi-dkms, I would remove it as that wifi card in the lspci results is supported even in Ubuntu 18.04 with the 4.15 kernel. Check `dmesg | grep iwl` as there may be a firmware issue

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Why is my wifi card not recognised on Ubuntu-20.04?

TH: เหตุใดการ์ด wifi ของฉันจึงไม่รู้จักบน Ubuntu-20.04

RO: De ce cardul meu wifi nu este recunoscut pe Ubuntu-20.04?

RU: Почему моя карта Wi-Fi не распознается в Ubuntu-20.04?

VI: Tại sao thẻ wifi của tôi không được nhận dạng trên Ubuntu-20.04?

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