Is my wifi fried, and how did this happen?

Support and Help
1

Ubuntu Version:
25.10

Desktop Environment (if applicable):
GNOME

Problem Description:
I’m using the ASRock B850M Steel Legend Wifi motherboard and its builtin wifi. The Ubuntu 25.10 installer recognized this just fine, and wifi worked without having to install anything, even in the live usb mode (note: this did not work on a 23.10 live usb, and as this is a newer motherboard I’m guessing it’s a driver that’s just in newer kernels).

Now, a couple weeks later, something happened to the wifi router; somebody in the house touched something on it, maybe accidentally hit a reset button or unplugged it/replugged it in. The wifi went down, including on my Windows work laptop. After the wifi came back up, Ubuntu was not able to reconnect, so I restarted, which is when it got weird.

The shutdown hung a bunch. I watched the messages as it tried to shut down, and it seemed like it was lagging on the network manager part. Eventually, after ten minutes or so, it reported that it shut down everything, and last message on the screen seemed to be what you would see before the screen goes black. But it didn’t go black. At that point, I figured it was safe to just turn the power button off.

The syslog at the point of the bad shutdown reports that NetworkManager was holding onto a mutex. But, it did report getting past that point.

Now, on subsequent reboots, wifi doesn’t come up at all. It’s not in ‘ip addr’, though it does show up in dmesg. I thought maybe it could have been turned off at the kernel level, but I tried my live usb stick (the 25.10 one that I successfully installed from), and it didn’t start up wifi either. Did this episode fry the motherboard’s wifi for good? Could it be a firmware issue?

Relevant System Information
ASRock B850M Steel Legend Wifi

I should add: I’m totally fine buying a new wifi card, probably even a USB one. But how can this happen? How do I know my next wifi card won’t end up getting fried?

2

You should do some troubleshooting before jumping into conclusions (and subsequent actions).

First check your UEFI settings as the WiFi may have been disabled for whatever reasons. If enabled and still doesn’t work try reseting the firmware, apply all changes you’ve made before, keep Fast Boot disabled and try again.

3

If your WiFi router is a separate component from your PC, invite a friend to bring their laptop and see if you can get their WiFi to connect.

  • If     it DOES connect       ==>>       YOUR PC   is the failure point and needs to be examined more closely

  • IF     it does NOT connect       ==>>       Your ROUTER is the failure point … and likely needs replacing.

As for all things electronic, failure is due to

  • aging
    (resulting from long periods of repeated heating/cooling thermal stress)       or

  • power surge
    (either thru any cord that is plugged into the unit, power or network, or static sparking from local proximity to any accessible metallic component)


( * * * recommendation edited upon further research * * * )


On the PC side of things …

Checking the BIOS or UEFI settings is a very good first, simple, disciplined step in the process of identifying what could be preventing the WiFi from being activated.


Could you share with us the report from the following commands:

[1] Does kernel detect WiFi hardware?

lspci -nn   |   grep -i network

[2] Is “non-function” result of H/W or S/W block?

rfkill   list

[3] What ERROR messages are being reported by kernel?

dmesg    |    grep   -iE 'wlan|wifi|firmware'

[4] General sanity check on state of WiFi:

sudo   iwconfig

[5] Hoping for report of ‘UNCLAIMED’ for WiFi:

sudo   lshw   -C network

[6] If WiFi “live”, report details:

sudo   iw   dev wlan0 scan
1 Like
4

Thanks for the replies so far. What I’ve tried:

  • UEFI reports the wifi is enabled
  • I tried reinstalling firmware “sudo apt install --reinstall linux-firmware”
  • I checked out fwupdmgr but it does not see this device
  • I turned off fast boot

lspci output:

04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: MEDIATEK Corp. MT7925 (RZ717) Wi-Fi 7 160MHz [14c3:0717]
  • It is not in rfkill list
  • I don’t see anything in dmesg for it
  • I can’t install iwconfig anymore (it seems like a legacy tool, wireless-tools package doesn’t seem to be available in 25.10), but ‘iw list’ and ‘iw dev’ return nothing

lshw -C network does have interesting output:

  *-network UNCLAIMED       
       description: Network controller
       product: MT7925 (RZ717) Wi-Fi 7 160MHz
       vendor: MEDIATEK Corp.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       version: 00
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pciexpress msi pm cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:f6200000-f63fffff memory:f6400000-f6407fff
5

Also, I can confirm that the router is not the issue. Other computers are connecting to the wifi network just fine.

6

If you are dual booting with Windows make sure the fast boot option is turned off on the Windows side and do a proper shutdown. Also check the router settings to see if it’s broadcasting on both 2.4 and 5ghz channels, maybe one was disabled that your laptop uses.

1 Like
7

Any results from terminal for sudo dmesg|grep mt7925

8
  • I’m not dual booting with Windows.
  • It’s not that it can’t see the router, it’s that the wifi device isn’t active.

Interesting output from dmesg with the search string of the device:

sudo dmesg | grep mt7925
[    3.601721] mt7925e 0000:04:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    4.623334] mt7925e 0000:04:00.0: driver own failed
[    4.623395] mt7925e 0000:04:00.0: probe with driver mt7925e failed with error -5
9

If you run

sudo modprobe -r mt7925e

sudo modprobe mt7925e

Does it start working OK?

1 Like
10

Seems there is a firmware package for Mediatek chips

https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/wifi-issue-with-mt7952e/73393/5

1 Like
11

Running modprobe doesn’t appear to fix anything; the kernel module is loaded.

As for the firmware link, that appears to be specific to endeavorOS and how they split up their firmware packages. Ubuntu’s linux-firmware package is still monolithic and does appear to have mediatek files in it. According to my /lib/firmware/mediatek directory, I do see an mt7925 directory in there, though within I don’t see one that specifically says mt7925e. However, looking at the package itself ( https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-firmware ) there are no relevant files that are absent in my ‘/lib/firmware/mediatek’ directory.

I’ve again run sudo apt install --reinstall linux-firmware to no effect, though I’m not sure what that does. Does that actually reinstall firmware on the hardware? Or just plop files in /lib/firmware?

12

You can add files to the firmware directory as needed. Is there anything at the end of dmeg after the module is reloaded?

Also, if there is a switch to enable/disable WiFi then press it. May help

13

I think that the driver is mt7925e.ko.zst
Location /usr/lib/modules/6.17.0-5-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/mediatek/mt76/mt7925

Regrettably, wifi is a mystery to me so I am unable to offer anything more fruitful.

14

Reloading firmware did not result in any changes to dmesg.

I’ve checked at /usr/lib/modules/6.17.0-5-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/mediatek/mt76/mt7925 and confirmed that mt7925e.ko.zst is present.

At this point, I did order a USB wireless adapter. I don’t have proof that the existing one on the motherboard is bricked, but these two facts that I posted above do seem to suggest it:

  • The live USB can no longer use the wifi, when it did work before (two weeks ago!)
  • the driver is there and is trying to talk to the device but gets an I/O error (code -5)

Thanks for everyone’s help.