Wi-Fi 7 (Qualcomm WCN7850 / FastConnect 7800) not working on Ubuntu 24.04.3 — ath12k_pci missing from kernel

[izir-o]

Hi everyone,

I’m running Ubuntu 24.04.3 on a new Lenovo Legion Pro 7 (2025 model) that includes the Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 (WCN7850) Wi-Fi 7 card. Ubuntu detects the PCI device, but the system never creates a wireless interface because the kernel module ath12k_pci is missing.

Here is a summary of what I have tested so far:
Kernels tested:
• 6.17.0-1006-oem (Ubuntu OEM kernel)
• 6.14.0-36-generic (HWE kernel)
• 6.18.0-061800-generic (Ubuntu mainline kernel)
Results across all kernels:
• The device is detected by lspci:
“Qualcomm Technologies WCN785x Wi-Fi 7 [FastConnect 7800]”
• Firmware exists on the system at:
/lib/firmware/ath12k/WCN7850/
• However, attempting to load the driver fails with:
modprobe: FATAL: Module ath12k_pci not found in directory /lib/modules/
Symptoms:
• No Wi-Fi interface appears in nmcli device (only ethernet + loopback)
• No Wi-Fi icon
• The ath12k_pci module is missing entirely from every kernel I have tried
• Firmware is present but unused because the kernel module does not exist

My question:

Which Ubuntu kernel (current or upcoming) is expected to include working support for the Qualcomm WCN7850 / FastConnect 7800 chipset?

I have attached a screenshot

[juergh]

There is no ath12k_pci module, it doesn’t exist in the kernel. Please file a bug:

$ sudo ubuntu-bug linux

[rubi1200]

@izir-o Welcome to Ubuntu Discourse

To add to what @juergh already mentioned, you need to file a bug report.

More information can be found here to assist you with the process.

[izir-o]

So am I out of luck with this wi-fi NIC?

[izir-o]

I get the following unfortunately:

[juergh]

You need to run an Ubuntu kernel, not mainline. Apport refuses to file a bug for an unsupported kernel.

[izir-o]

Would running an Ubuntu Kernel help fix my issue? If so, sorry for the new n00b question, but where can I find official Ubuntu kernels that support my Wi-fi NIC?

[juergh]

The problem is likely that the kernel doesn’t recognize the PCI ID of your card. You need to run your installed 6.14 HWE kernel then file a bug. I you don’t have networking on that machine you can save the bug report to a file, transfer it to another machine, file a bug from there [1] and attach the report. The report will contain HW information so we should learn what you have.

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+filebug

[Jeremy31]

Please post results for lspci -nnk|grep -iA3 net; sudo dmesg|grep ath

[gpmitch]

24.04.3 with 6.14 HWE

$ modinfo ath12k |grep -2 alias
description:    Driver support for Qualcomm Technologies PCIe 802.11be WLAN devices
srcversion:     26E9111A6E6D90836AD0DC1
alias:          pci:v000017CBd00001107sv*sd*bc*sc*i*  <--WCN785x Wi-Fi 7(802.11be) 320MHz 2x2 [FastConnect 7800]
alias:          pci:v000017CBd00001109sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
depends:        mac80211,cfg80211,qmi_helpers,mhi
intree:         Y

Should work OOB.

[izir-o]

It’s not working for me:

This is the card I ordered if it matters: https://embeddedworks.net/product/wlan889/

[izir-o]

Here is the output for that command:

[izir-o]

I decompressed the board-2.bin.zst file and I am getting the following message now:

[izir-o]

I decompressed the board-2.bin.zst file and now I am getting a different error message:

[izir-o]

This maybe a dumb question, but when I was replacing the MediaTek 7927 with this Sparklan WNFQ-290BE, it was quite difficult for me to secure the Aux connector, I tried multiple times and I seemingly had it, could this be causing the issue? Sometimes upon bootup/startup, lspci does not list the network card. This happens about 30% of the time.

[Jeremy31]

Might just have to get the firmware files from https://web.git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/log/ath12k/WCN7850/hw2.0 and reboot

[oi-io]

I’m encountering the same issue. Below are some dmesg logs:

root@oi-SFA14-11:~# dmesg | grep fail
[ 0.000000] OF: reserved mem: node linux,cma compatible matching fail
[ 6.359387] ath12k_pci 0004:01:00.0: failed to fetch board data for bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=1eac,subsystem-device=8001,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255 from ath12k/WCN7850/hw2.0/board-2.bin
[ 6.359395] ath12k_pci 0004:01:00.0: failed to fetch board.bin from WCN7850/hw2.0
[ 6.359397] ath12k_pci 0004:01:00.0: qmi failed to load bdf:
[ 6.359399] ath12k_pci 0004:01:00.0: qmi failed to load board data file:-2

If your issue has been resolved, please share the outcome.

[juergh]

board-2.bin doesn’t know about your specific card which means the firmware doesn’t support it. You could try to patch it, take a look at this script as a starting point. Use ath12k-bdencoder instead.

[juergh]

These are the known boards for ath12k/WCN7850/hw2.0/board-2.bin:

bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=105b,subsystem-device=e0dc,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=QC_5mm.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=105b,subsystem-device=e0dc,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=105b,subsystem-device=e0ea,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=AC_RAY16ZPB.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=105b,subsystem-device=e0eb,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=105b,subsystem-device=e0ee,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=DE01.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=105b,subsystem-device=e0ee,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=DE02.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=105b,subsystem-device=e0ee,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=105b,subsystem-device=e0ef,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=AS_S55_SA.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=105b,subsystem-device=e10d,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=105b,subsystem-device=e122,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=HO_MoorO.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17aa,subsystem-device=e0e6,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=LE.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17aa,subsystem-device=e0e6,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=LE_Eiger.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17aa,subsystem-device=e0e6,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17aa,subsystem-device=e0e9,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=LES790.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17aa,subsystem-device=e0e9,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=LE_Altai.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17aa,subsystem-device=e0e9,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=LE_C590.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17aa,subsystem-device=e115,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255,variant=LE_S590.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17cb,subsystem-device=1107,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=44.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17cb,subsystem-device=1107,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=82.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17cb,subsystem-device=3378,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=255.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17cb,subsystem-device=3378,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=260.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17cb,subsystem-device=3378,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=262.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17cb,subsystem-device=3378,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=270.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17cb,subsystem-device=337a,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=272.bin
bus=pci,vendor=17cb,device=1107,subsystem-vendor=17cb,subsystem-device=337c,qmi-chip-id=2,qmi-board-id=271.bin

[gpmitch]

Just looked at this a little further and it seems Qualcomm really mucked things up with their firmware for your device. Some people reported a fix by going back and using older versions of the firmware files and sometimes also older kernel versions. Some updated to newer versions of firmware and kernels. From the few bug reports I read, I didn’t gleam any clear consensus on a fix or workaround that worked for most people. Supposedly there was a fix back in May, but obviously with people still reporting problems it didn’t work for everyone.

You’re on 24.04.3. The linux-firmware package version for this release is 20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.21. Might try booting a live 25.10 image to see if a newer kernel with a newer linux-firmware package (20250901.git993ff19b-0ubuntu1.4 all) gets the device working.