Linux with the Sierra Wireless MC5720 in the Lenovo Z60t

ericc · EVDO Newbie Joined: 25 Mar 2006 Posts: 2

Hello,

I have a dual boot Windows XP and SuSE 10.0 Z60t laptop. I signed up for Verizon EV-DO a month or so ago and really like it. I activated the modem under Windows XP.

I wanted to get EV-DO service working under Linux. There is little information on the MC5720 mini-pci card and not much on using similar cards under Linux. The main problem is the rf section of the wireless cards are powered down at bootup and the Windows XP drivers power them up when used. I needed to install a newer linux driver for the 802.11A/B/G card before it would power up.

I setup the serial port of the MC5720 as a generic USB serial port and use the udev system for configuration. A hardware configuration and udev action needs to be setup.

/etc/sysconfig/hardware/hwcfg-usb-evdo

ammulder · EVDO Newbie Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 8

I tried this formula on a T60p with SuSE 10.1 beta 8. When I call pppd it runs the whole script and then fails at the end:
...
send (AT+CSQ;D#777^M)
timeout set to 70 seconds
expect (CONNECT)
^M
AT+CSQ;D#777^M^M
99, 99^M
^M
NO CARRIER
-- failed
Failed (NO CARRIER)
Connect script failed

I wonder if my Verizon card is not powered on? What did you have to do to power it on? I have an Intel 3945 wireless in there with it, and I'm running the driver and daemon that activates the 3945 card and I can see it as eth1, so I think that much is working, but it doesn't seem to be helping the Verizon card. (It works fine in Windows)

Thanks,
Aaron

ammulder · EVDO Newbie Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 8

It seems that if I use the switch on the front of the laptop case that controls the wireless, that can power on the Verizon card. That is, when I first booted, only 802.11 wireless was enabled. After flipping the switch off and on again, bluetooth and the Verizon lights both came up, and now the pppd connection script works as expected.

I seem to get pretty equivalent speed from Windows and Linux (50-70 kB/s downloads in the Minneapolis area where I first tried this).

I have also been able to connect from a car on the NJ turnpike, though the connection wasn't very fast -- presumably it wasn't close enough to Philadelphia or New York. Smile

ammulder · EVDO Newbie Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 8

The next time I booted the power switch trick didn't work -- nothing I tried would enable the Verizon card.

I rebooted to Windows, connected there, rebooted to Linux, flipped the wireless power switch to off while it was in the BIOS, waited until Linux was fully up, then flipped the power switch to on and tried connecting and it worked. I'm not sure which part of this process helped. Grrr! Smile

ericc · EVDO Newbie Joined: 25 Mar 2006 Posts: 2

Hello,

On the Z60t I keep the switch on. The card should turn on when AT!PCSTATE=1 is sent to the card in the dialup script. AT!PCSTATE=0 turns it off. I can see the wireless light turn on before dialing and turn off after disconnect.

It could be something else coming into play for power control. I was able to use minicom to communicate with the modem as the AT interface is still active when "off". It uses a version of the AT command set. The &V and +GCAP commands work. Here is what my modem returns.

ammulder · EVDO Newbie Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 8

I updated my laptop from SuSE 10.1 beta 8 to SuSE 10.1 beta 9, and now the chat scripts are working like you said -- the disconnect script shuts down the verizon indicator light and the connect script turns it back on again. I guess I won't fully trust it for another couple suspend/resumes and reboots, but so far so good. Smile

Thanks,
Aaron

ammulder · EVDO Newbie Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 8

OK, spoke too soon. About half the time, the shutdown script doesn't work for me. It just hangs for a while and I get something like this:

Terminating on signal 2
Connect time 3.0 minutes.
Sent 68668 bytes, received 449424 bytes.
Script /etc/ppp/ip-down started (pid 4984)
sent [LCP TermReq id=0x2 "User request"]
rcvd [LCP TermAck id=0x2]
Connection terminated.
timeout set to 30 seconds
expect (NO CARRIER)
alarm
Failed
disconnect script failed
Script /etc/ppp/ip-down finished (pid 4984), status = 0x0

I'm willing to try the commands you suggested, but I've never used minicom and I don't know how to get it to talk to /dev/ttyUSB0 and let me issue AT commands -- can you walk me through it?

Thanks,
Aaron

ammulder · EVDO Newbie Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 8

I updated to SuSE 10.1 RC 1.

Once again, I couldn't get the EVDO card to connect. All the commands were executed correctly, it just died at the end with NO CARRIER.

I tried turning the wireless power switch off and back on again, and then tried the EVDO connection again, and it worked.

So it seems like there's some kind of basic poweron command that's not happening in just the script by itself. the AT!PCSTATE=1 does not seem to do it. I did get things going in minicom, and when the connection was not working, I could run AT!PCSTATE=1 in minicom and it did not light up the little antenna light on the laptop and didn't make the connection work.

My modem did have slightly different output than yours to the AT&V command, but I didn't save it, so I'll post it next time I'm online without the Verizon connection. Smile

tiwula · EVDO Newbie Joined: 27 Jun 2006 Posts: 4

I have a notebook with Sierra Wireless MC5720/embedded. I run Linux only, not a dual boot system. My question is this....

I was talking with Verizon and the representative indicated that cards should be updated every 60 - 90 days. According to the representative, doing this updates the database and will lead to improved performance in some situations.

So - according to the representative, to update the card requires using VZAccess and reinitializing the card. At this point, the representative struggled a bit with the notion of not being able to simply download and run VZAccess....

So - in the case of my PCMCIA card, I can see doing this - not very convenient, but I can track down a Windows computer and reinitialize the card. In the case of the embedded product on a Linux-only notebook, this seems a little more challenging.

1) What is known about the need to update the card routinely? Is this recommended?
2) Any suggestions for how to deal with updating an embedded card on a Linux-only notebook?

I guess I could swap the disk out and install Windows on a spare disk, but not everybody has a spare disk kicking around. Feels a little like turning the house to unscrew the lightbulb....

rkimbrell

I had the problem a few people mentioned above that the MC5720 wasn't transmitting or receiving in Linux (but was in WinXP). I fixed this problem by updating the sierra.c module. I was running sierra.c 1.0.5. At the Sierra Wireless site there's an updated module. You can find the site through Google with the search "sierra wireless at!pcinfo" without the quotes. For me it was the third line down - at sierrawireless.com.

I installed the module by downloading the file from the Sierra Wireless site, un-tar-ing it, cd-ing to the folder created by tar, and issuing "make" and "sudo make install" commands. After a reboot, the antenna light is on and I can contact Verizon.