RTL8821CE not working by default?

[SirLouen]

Today I picked a new laptop, and trying to make it work.
Installed the livecd to see that there was no Wireless adapter by default

Checking into the terminal, I see that rtl8821ce dkms module is there by default, but still, it doesn't pick the wireless adapter.

What can be going on?

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root@mx1:~# sudo apt install rtl8821ce-dkms
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
rtl8821ce-dkms is already the newest version (5.5.2.1+git20220827-0.1~mx21+1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 14 not upgraded.
root@mx1:~# lspci | grep -i wireless
01:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter

[Adrian]

Does lsmod show rtl8821ce module loaded? Can you try to do a "modprobe rtl8821ce" and see if you get any error?
Another thing to try is to reinstall the package, I think this should rebuild the module, "sudo apt reinstall rtl8821ce-dkms"

Can you please also post the Quick System info? It's useful to know
1. what version
2. what flavor (KDE, Xfce)
3. 32/64 bit...

All these might be relevant

[SirLouen]

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$ lsmod | grep rtl88
rtl8821ce            2019328  0
cfg80211              983040  4 wl,rtl8821ce,rtw88_core,mac80211

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root@mx1:~# modprobe rtl8821ce
root@mx1:~# 

I'm using the latest MX Linux KDE version, copied the img right now in the USB from the downloads page. I'm using the live usb to test this

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# uname -a
Linux mx1 5.10.0-18-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.140-1 (2022-09-02) x86_64 GNU/Linux

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System:    Kernel: 5.10.0-18-amd64 [5.10.140-1] x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/antiX/vmlinuz quiet splasht nosplash lang=en_US kbd=es 
           tz=America/New_York 
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.20.5 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 7 dm: SDDM 
           Distro: MX-21.2.1_KDE_x64 Wildflower September 18  2022 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop Mobo: N/A model: N/A serial: <filter> UEFI: American Megatrends 
           v: X13GTE.E.L4XB376.6S.S3E3P2W7.SDZ.AOC.L003 date: 07/21/2022 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 9.9 Wh (26.1%) condition: 38.0/38.0 Wh (100.0%) volts: 7.6 min: N/A 
           model: N/A type: Unknown serial: <filter> status: Discharging 
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: Intel Celeron J4105 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Goldmont Plus 
           family: 6 model-id: 7A (122) stepping: 1 microcode: 3A cache: L2: 4 MiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 11980 
           Speed: 1788 MHz min/max: 800/2500 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1788 2: 1784 3: 2120 
           4: 1757 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected 
           Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
           Type: mds status: Not affected 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected 
           Type: retbleed status: Not affected 
           Type: spec_store_bypass 
           mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 
           mitigation: Enhanced IBRS, IBPB: conditional, RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel GeminiLake [UHD Graphics 600] driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 
           chip-ID: 8086:3185 class-ID: 0300 
           Device-2: icSpring icspring camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-8:5 
           chip-ID: 32e6:9005 class-ID: 0e02 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.14 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: loaded: modesetting 
           unloaded: fbdev,vesa display-ID: :0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") 
           s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
           Monitor-1: eDP-1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 142 size: 344x194mm (13.5x7.6") 
           diag: 395mm (15.5") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 600 (GLK 2) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.0.5 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor High Definition Audio vendor: Realtek 
           driver: sof-audio-pci alternate: snd_hda_intel,snd_soc_skl,snd_sof_pci bus-ID: 00:0e.0 
           chip-ID: 8086:3198 class-ID: 0401 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.0-18-amd64 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter driver: N/A 
           modules: rtw88_8821ce, wl, rtl8821ce port: e000 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:c821 
           class-ID: 0280 
           IF-ID-1: usb0 state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-7:4 
           chip-ID: 0bda:c821 class-ID: e001 serial: <filter> 
           Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.2 
           sub-v: 7644 hci-v: 4.2 rev: 829a 
           Info: acl-mtu: 1021:8 sco-mtu: 255:12 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff park 
           link-mode: slave accept service-classes: rendering, capturing, object transfer, audio 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 133.56 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Hoodisk model: SSD size: 119.24 GiB block-size: 
           physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: P1B3 
           scheme: GPT 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Cruzer Blade 
           size: 14.32 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: N/A serial: <filter> 
           rev: 1.00 scheme: MBR 
           SMART Message: Unknown USB bridge. Flash drive/Unsupported enclosure? 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
           dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 52.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Packages: note: see --pkg apt: 2294 lib: 1285 flatpak: 0 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mirrors.rit.edu/mxlinux/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bullseye main non-free
           2: deb http://mirrors.rit.edu/mxlinux/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bullseye ahs
Info:      Processes: 194 Uptime: 7m wakeups: 2 Memory: 5.46 GiB used: 2.21 GiB (40.6%) 
           Init: SysVinit v: 2.96 runlevel: 5 default: 5 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: N/A 
           alt: 10 Client: shell wrapper v: 5.1.4-release inxi: 3.3.06 
Boot Mode: UEFI

[Adrian]

The driver is already loaded (it shows in lsmod, and also when you don't get any output after "modprobe rtl8821ce" is a sign it was loaded successfully)

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Device-1: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter driver: N/A 
           modules: rtw88_8821ce, wl, rtl8821ce

Not sure how to interpret that, it shows adapter driver N/A but rtl882211ce is loaded. There might be an issue with this version of the driver, I think it comes from AHS repo if I'm not wrong the version from Stable is 5.5.2.1-7~mx21+1 please use MX Repo Manager, disable AHS source for time being, do an "apt update", remove rtl8821ce-dkms and reinstall it, you should get 5.5.2.1-7~mx21+1 version. Let's see if that fixes the issue.

@timkb4cq do you know if anybody else has problem with the AHS version of rtl8821ce-dkms?

[dolphin_oracle]

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rfkill list all

[timkb4cq]

IIRC rtw88_8821ce is from the kernel and rtl8821ce is from the dkms driver.
If I am correct, one of those needs to be blacklisted. The reports we have had were that the in-kernel rtw88_8821ce version was slow & flaky and the rtl8821ce worked better.
I would use MX Network Assistant from MX Tools to blacklist the rtw88_8821ce driver and see how that works.
You can always go back and unblacklist it and blacklist the rtl8821ce driver instead to compare.

[SirLouen]

When I install (im on live now), I may try this method of blacklisting rtw88_8821ce otherwise afaik i won't be able to blacklist and reboot to test it right.

[timkb4cq]

You don't have to reboot. When you blacklist in MX Network Assistant it immediately unloads the blacklisted driver so you should see a result right away.

[Huckleberry Finn]

Yep, they're conflicting.

If just blacklisting (the rtw88_8821ce) doesn't work:

"MX Boot Options" from menu: add into "Kernel Parameters" area:

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pci=noaer

Apply, reboot.


(This worked in a thread in German forum)

P.S. Of course this is on the installed system, so, you can try the parameter at welcome screen on live session if you like. (Press E and add after quiet splasht nosplash lang=en_US kbd=es tz=America/New_York ... F10 to go on boot ... then blacklist with MX Network Assistant)

[SirLouen]

First things first, i have both unloaded and blacklisted (also blacklisted)

Screenshot_20220923_135824.png

But network adapter doesn't come alive, although its right that the module is unloaded after this

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# lsmod | grep 8821
rtl8821ce            2019328  0
cfg80211              983040  2 wl,rtl8821ce

I'm going to try now the solution from Hckleberry