Solved Another Linux Mint Wifi Problem

[Omnifitense]

A little under 5 hours ago, my new laptop's inbuilt network adapter stopped working. It refuses to acknowledge that WiFi exists at all. I had to get an external adapter from the other room which solves the problem temporarily; however, the laptop only has 2 USB ports, the other of which I use for my headphones.

I've made sure Secure Boot is off, and tried a number of other tips I've picked up from other searches. None have worked.

(Side note, I'm beginning to think I've been cursed.)

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Some laptops have on/off physical switch for wifi adapters, could be you accidentally pulled it.
Is there one somewhere on the laptop outside?

It's also possible you pressed Fn key combo that disables wifi.
What's your laptop brand and model?

Is your onboard wifi adapter reported in lspci command?

lspci

 

[Omnifitense]

The model is Alienware 16X Aurora.

lspci lists the Ethernet controller as Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Alienware 16X Aurora.

There don't seem to be Fn key combo for wifi:

Alienware Laptop FN Keys | DELL Technologies

M18x-R1/R2FN F1 Suspend Mode In the suspend mode, the display and selected devices will switch off for less energy consumptionFN F2 Battery Status MeterFN F3 Mute On/OffFN F4 Increase BrightnessFN ...

www.dell.com

You said nothing about on/off switch so I assume it doesn't exist.

And if lspci says nothing about wifi adapter then probably your adapter is toast.

Other places to look for are BIOS, wifi adapter could be disabled there.
Check also system logs if there's anything reported:

sudo journalctl -u NetworkManager

 

[Omnifitense]

Only yellow entries were as follows:
generate[1184]: Permissions for /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml are too open. Netplan configuration should NOT be accessible by others.
generate[2196]: Permissions for /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml are too open. Netplan configuration should NOT be accessible by others.
generate[2282]: Permissions for /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml are too open. Netplan configuration should NOT be accessible by others.

 

[PuppyHome]

@Omnifitense

Looks like a permission issue. How you got there I have no idea. Try this command.

sudo chmod 600 /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml

600 = owner read/write only

See what that does.

 

[PuppyHome]

This command covers ALL netplan files and might even be a better solution. See if the first works and then execute this one. If the first command doesn't work then as said before your network adapter itself might be in very bad condition.

sudo chmod 600 /etc/netplan/*.yaml

 

[Omnifitense]

Neither command seemed to do anything, even after restarting.

 

[PuppyHome]

Neither command seemed to do anything, even after restarting.

Hmmmm. Those command had at least come up with some output.

If I were you i'd contact HP support to see what's going on. How old is said laptop? Could you post the output of

inxi -Fxz

 

[Omnifitense]

Hmmmm. Those command had at least come up with some output.

If I were you i'd contact HP support to see what's going on. How old is said laptop? Could you post the output of

inxi -Fxz

System:
Kernel: 6.17.0-23-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.3.0
Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.6.7 Distro: Linux Mint 22.3 Zena
base: Ubuntu 24.04 noble
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: Alienware product: Alienware 16X Aurora AC16251 v: N/A
serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: Alienware model: 0T65JV v: A00 serial: <superuser required>
UEFI: Alienware v: 2.2.1 date: 03/24/2026
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 62.9 Wh (66.3%) condition: 94.9/94.8 Wh (100.1%)
volts: 11.9 min: 11.7 model: SMP DELL W1M2J5AP status: discharging
CPU:
Info: 24-core model: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX bits: 64 type: MCP
arch: Arrow Lake rev: 2 cache: L1: 2.4 MiB L2: 40 MiB L3: 36 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1537 high: 2202 min/max: 800/5300:5400:4700 cores:
1: 2199 2: 2202 3: 2200 4: 800 5: 1913 6: 1840 7: 2201 8: 2202 9: 1901
10: 800 11: 1900 12: 1795 13: 1899 14: 800 15: 1804 16: 800 17: 800
18: 1887 19: 800 20: 1887 21: 800 22: 800 23: 800 24: 1866
bogomips: 147456
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Arrow Lake-U [Intel Graphics] vendor: Dell driver: i915
v: kernel arch: Gen-15 bus-ID: 00:02.0
Device-2: NVIDIA vendor: Dell driver: nvidia v: 595.58.03 bus-ID: 01:00.0
Device-3: Microdia Integrated_Webcam_FHD driver: uvcvideo type: USB
bus-ID: 3-6:4
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting,nvidia unloaded: fbdev,nouveau,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915
resolution: 4096x2560~240Hz
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: iris,nvidia,swrast platforms:
active: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device inactive: wayland,device-1
API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 595.58.03
glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Laptop
GPU/PCIe/SSE2
API: Vulkan v: 1.3.275 drivers: N/A surfaces: xcb,xlib devices: 3
Audio:
Device-1: NVIDIA driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1
Device-2: Intel vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
bus-ID: 80:1f.3
Device-3: Razer USA BlackShark V3 Pro USB
driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB bus-ID: 3-4:3
API: ALSA v: k6.17.0-23-generic status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: active
Network:
Device-1: MEDIATEK vendor: Foxconn driver: N/A port: N/A bus-ID: 81:00.0
Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
vendor: Dell RTL8111/8168/8411 driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000
bus-ID: 82:00.0
IF: enp130s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-3: TP-Link Archer T4U ver.3 driver: rtw88_8822bu type: USB
bus-ID: 4-2:2
IF: wlx98482788e8cf state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 953.87 GiB used: 109.3 GiB (11.5%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: SK Hynix model: PVC10 1024GB size: 953.87 GiB
temp: 42.9 C
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 937.33 GiB used: 109.29 GiB (11.7%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 6.2 MiB (1.2%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) file: /swapfile
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 58.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 54 C
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
Memory: total: 32 GiB note: est. available: 30.8 GiB used: 5.49 GiB (17.8%)
Processes: 474 Uptime: 9m Init: systemd target: graphical (5)
Packages: 2317 Compilers: gcc: 13.3.0 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.21 inxi: 3.3.34

 

[PuppyHome]

@Omnifitense

Hp hardware behaves very strange sometimes in my experience. I am talking hardware 8 years and older. On my 11yo Pavillion Linux Mint killed my battery years ago with no apparent reason and on my 8yo Pavillion it killed my wireless interface. I see a pattern there.

Both are still running Pups and EasyOS brilliantly tho aside of the damage.
Having an Alienware yourself you probably are frustrated right now.

Contact HP support.

 

[Omnifitense]

@Omnifitense

Hp hardware behaves very strange sometimes in my experience. I am talking hardware 8 years and older. On my 11yo Pavillion Linux Mint killed my battery years ago with no apparent reason and on my 8yo Pavillion it killed my wireless interface. I see a pattern there.

Both are still running Pups and EasyOS brilliantly tho aside of the damage.
Having an Alienware yourself you probably are frustrated right now.

Contact HP support.

Will do. Thank you for the help.

 

[PuppyHome]

IF: enp130s0 state: down mac: <filter>

In terminal type

if enp130s0 up

See if your interface comes up again.

 

[Omnifitense]

No response in the terminal, no change overall.

 

[PuppyHome]

In that case I'm (also) out of ideas. I will investigate further and if anything comes up I will post it here so keep your notifications on.

Don't blame yourself, don't blame Linux. This is a HP issue.

 

[Omnifitense]

In that case I'm (also) out of ideas. I will investigate further and if anything comes up I will post it here so keep your notifications on.

Don't blame yourself, don't blame Linux. This is a HP issue.

It's a Dell laptop, not HP. But yeah, this is quietly infuriating. Thank you for the help.

 

[PuppyHome]

It's a Dell laptop, not HP. But yeah, this is quietly infuriating. Thank you for the help.

Ugh, I did mean Dell but wrote HP sorry for the confusion, multitasking here. Was right about the HP laptops though.

My Dell laptop was also broken at point, that's what prompted my responses while working on a HP............yeah age is catching up on me.

 

[Fae3iSUx]

The model is Alienware 16X Aurora.

lspci lists the Ethernet controller as Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)

As CaffeineAddict said, If your WiFi adapter is not listed here, nothing will work.
Try again to find airplane mode key shortcut if it exists.
Reset BIOS.
Report back if you have any progress.

There is also rfkill command which toggles physical WiFi switch button or something, but I don't remember exact parameters at this time.

 

[Alexzee]

As a last resort try a usb wifi dongle. Worked for me in the past.
Support for it should be in the kernel.

TP Link, Media Tech and Nighthawk are a few that come to mind.

USB-WiFi/home/USB_WiFi_Adapters_that_are_supported_with_Linux_in-kernel_drivers.md at main · morrownr/USB-WiFi

USB WiFi Adapter Information for Linux. Contribute to morrownr/USB-WiFi development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

HTH

 

[Omnifitense]

As a last resort try a usb wifi dongle. Worked for me in the past.
Support for it should be in the kernel.

TP Link, Media Tech and Nighthawk are a few that come to mind.

USB-WiFi/home/USB_WiFi_Adapters_that_are_supported_with_Linux_in-kernel_drivers.md at main · morrownr/USB-WiFi

USB WiFi Adapter Information for Linux. Contribute to morrownr/USB-WiFi development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

HTH

I'm using a dongle now. Works just fine right out of the gate.