Ath9k on D-Link N300 failing

Question

I've successfully installed arch linux on my laptop, and had wifi working. For some time now, I've been trying to do the same on my desktop computer, and have had no trouble getting arch set up for the most part, except for this persistent and perplexing issue with the wifi-adapter. I have tried so many things at this point, and gone down so many rabbit holes that I'm not sure what is relevant and what is not. I was hoping that somebody could lead me in the right direction as to how to debug this issue. I'm in the position that it's very inconvenient to use ethernet, but for debugging purposes it can be temporarily set up.
As it stands, the issue is this: running wifi-menu results in my home network coming up. I can select it and enter my password, and it then hangs for a while before saying:
Job for netctl@wpl0s6\x2dHome\x2dBranchton.service failed. See 'systemctl status netctl@wlp0s6\x2d\Home\x2dBranchton.service' and 'journalctl -xn' for details
The former command tells me that the netctl profile is loaded and inactive
The latter command tells me that the interface state goes from inactive to associated, then the connection is disconnected for reason -3 and then the state goes from associated to disconnected. If there's more meaningful info that I should include from those commands, I can. It's just tricky since I can't do much on the machine without an internet connection.
The other thing I've tried is booting from the original usb and running wifi-menu right away. This results in a complete freeze of the system. I also recall the same thing happening booting from an ubuntu live usb. It froze as soon as I tried to connect to wireless.
I apologize for the lack of helpful information in this post, but if somebody can give me a hint as to the direction I should proceed in, I'll perhaps have a better idea of what would be useful. I'm quite at a loss on this one.
UPDATE: So, disabling the networkmanager service and then using wpa_supplicant directly seemed to fix the problem, but it resulted in a new problem. I was able to set up a fairly stable connection, but spontaneously I would get TX DMA type errors, which I remember getting before. It seems that it's just the luck of the draw with ath9k "compatible" devices.
Last edited by jaredwindover (2014-01-11 23:31:41)

Answer 1

Yes, you have to choose the N mode. Go to the D-Link Setup page, > select Wireless Settings.
Choose Manual Wireless Network setup at the bottom,> go to Wireless Network Settings, >click on 802.11 Mode> and select your style of N mode. Good luck.