PCI rtl8185 card showing in lspci (and inxi), with assigned kernel module, but no interface created

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Hi,
I have installed Manjaro on a quite old computer (15 years). For internet, I planned to use this old PCI card (PCI Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller) I had in my drawers.

However, I have some troubles setting it up : It is listed in lspci -k, with a kernel module assigned to it :

lspci -k 
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 20)
        Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller
        Kernel modules: rtl818x_pci
inxi -Fxz 
System:    Kernel: 5.10.32-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.0 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.21.4 Distro: Manjaro Linux 
           base: Arch Linux 
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: P5Q-PRO v: Rev 1.xx serial: <filter> BIOS: American Megatrends v: 2002 
           date: 02/23/2009 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core2 Duo E8400 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Penryn rev: A cache: L2: 6 MiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 11998 
           Speed: 2000 MHz min/max: 2003/3003 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2000 2: 2000 
Graphics:  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Curacao PRO [Radeon R7 370 / R9 270/370 OEM] 
           vendor: Hightech Information System driver: radeon v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: ati,radeon unloaded: modesetting s-res: 1366x768 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD PITCAIRN (DRM 2.50.0 5.10.32-1-MANJARO LLVM 11.1.0) v: 4.5 Mesa 21.0.3 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 82801JI HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 
           Device-2: AMD Oland/Hainan/Cape Verde/Pitcairn HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 7000 Series] 
           vendor: Hightech Information System driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.32-1-MANJARO running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: JACK v: 0.125.0 running: no 
           Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
           Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.26 running: no 
Network:   Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR8121/AR8113/AR8114 Gigabit or Fast Ethernet vendor: ASUSTeK driver: ATL1E v: N/A 
           port: cc00 bus-ID: 02:00.0 
           IF: enp2s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN driver: N/A port: e000 bus-ID: 05:00.0 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 2.05 TiB used: 94.55 GiB (4.5%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD7500AADS-00L5B1 size: 698.64 GiB 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Seagate model: ST31500341AS size: 1.36 TiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 27.37 GiB used: 8.8 GiB (32.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb2 
           ID-2: /boot size: 941.9 MiB used: 60.7 MiB (6.4%) fs: ext2 dev: /dev/sdb1 
           ID-3: /home size: 91.55 GiB used: 80.26 GiB (87.7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb5 
           ID-4: /var size: 38.33 GiB used: 5.44 GiB (14.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb8 
Swap:      Alert: No swap data was found. 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 17.5 C mobo: 25.0 C gpu: radeon temp: 27.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 1962 psu: 0 case-1: 1196 case-2: 0 
           Power: 12v: 12.32 5v: N/A 3.3v: 3.30 vbat: N/A 
Info:      Processes: 203 Uptime: 10h 16m Memory: 3.84 GiB used: 2.49 GiB (64.9%) Init: systemd Compilers: gcc: N/A 
           Packages: 1042 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.0 inxi: 3.3.04

But the interface (wlan*) is not created (only the ethernet card is listed with ip link) :

ip link 
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp2s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:24:8c:63:a6:24 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
rfkill list all 
[leo-lab leo]# rfkill list all
[leo-lab leo]#

The only error I’ve found yet (in the addition to the “Driver : N/A” from inxi) was:

[leo-lab leo]# dmesg | grep -i -E '5:00.0|wlan|wlp5s0|80211|rtl'
[    0.365904] pci 0000:05:00.0: [10ec:8185] type 00 class 0x020000
[    0.365918] pci 0000:05:00.0: reg 0x10: [io  0xe000-0xe0ff]
[    0.365926] pci 0000:05:00.0: reg 0x14: [mem 0xfebff400-0xfebff7ff]
[    0.365984] pci 0000:05:00.0: supports D1 D2
[    0.365985] pci 0000:05:00.0: PME# supported from D1 D2 D3hot D3cold
[   18.503817] cfg80211: Loading compiled-in X.509 certificates for regulatory database
[   18.507193] cfg80211: Loaded X.509 cert 'sforshee: 00b28ddf47aef9cea7'
[   19.597912] 0000:05:00.0 (rtl8180): Unknown RF! (0xff)

Any Help ?

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Hi @hl037,

It seems the network card is known for its issues, but I’m not sure about it.

Anyway, after reading your post, I did a (very quick) Google search. The first result is this page, where the second to last answer states:

hihi, i got a lot of trouble with the realtek 8185, finally i compile the driver provided by realtek, http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/dow … loads=true and it works properly when you finish download the driver unzip on a folder without spaces, and type inside the driver folder the following (you must have installed the kernel headers, make, gcc4, and maybe kernel sources):
1- make
2- make install
3-reboot.
if you wanna user a 64 bit kernel, you must do a hack on the driver very simple on, just comment line 2065 on the /driver_folder/rtl8185/r8180_core.c, step 1 and 2 (make, make install), reboot, GOGOGOGO!.

PD: by “comment” i mean adding “//” at the beginning of the line, like this:
rdtsc_rtl(prism_hdr[5], prism_hdr[4]);
// rdtsc_rtl(prism_hdr[5], prism_hdr[4]);

bye, goodluck.

I hope this helps! (At least somewhat.)

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