WiFi adapters/drivers broken on Thinkpad T14 Gen3 after switch back to previous LTS kernel 5.15.106-1 with March 2023 firmware

I recently tried switching back to previous LTS kernel 5.15.106-1 while troubleshooting another issue with external monitors. That issue fixed itself with the kernel revert but now no WiFi is detected and even getting the wired connection recognised took a bit of the old turn it off and on again which was alarming

$ lspci:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake Innovation Platform Framework Processor Participant (rev 02)
00:06.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 12th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x4 Controller #0 (rev 02)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P Thunderbolt 4 PCI Express Root Port #0 (rev 02)
00:07.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P Thunderbolt 4 PCI Express Root Port #2 (rev 02)
00:0a.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Platform Monitoring Technology (rev 01)
00:0d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P Thunderbolt 4 USB Controller (rev 02)
00:0d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P Thunderbolt 4 NHI #0 (rev 02)
00:0d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P Thunderbolt 4 NHI #1 (rev 02)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH USB 3.2 xHCI Host Controller (rev 01)
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH Shared SRAM (rev 01)
00:14.3 Network controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi (rev 01)
00:15.0 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #0 (rev 01)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH HECI Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH eSPI Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH-P SMBus Host Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P PCH SPI Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.6 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (16) I219-V (rev 01)
02:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Sandisk Corp Device 5017 (rev 01)

$ lshw -C network

*-network:0 UNCLAIMED     
       description: Network controller
       product: Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 14.3
       bus info: pci@0000:00:14.3
       version: 01
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: iomemory:600-5ff memory:603d1cc000-603d1cffff
  *-network:1
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: Ethernet Connection (16) I219-V
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 1f.6
       bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.6
       logical name: enp0s31f6
       version: 01
       serial: e8:80:88:81:fe:02
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=5.15.106-1-MANJARO firmware=0.5-4 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
       resources: irq:142 memory:bc300000-bc31ffff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 2
       bus info: usb@2:3.1
       logical name: eth0
       serial: e0:4f:43:93:de:9e
       size: 1Gbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       capabilities: ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8152 driverversion=v1.12.13 duplex=full firmware=rtl8153b-2 v1 10/23/19 ip=10.100.105.131 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s

So far I tried (re-)installing:

yay iwlwifi-ax101-dkms

Further info:
inxi -N

Network:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi driver: N/A modules: iwlwifi
    bus-ID: 00:14.3 chip-ID: 8086:51f0 class-ID: 0280
  Device-2: Intel Ethernet I219-V vendor: Lenovo driver: e1000e v: kernel
    port: N/A bus-ID: 00:1f.6 chip-ID: 8086:1a1f class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp0s31f6 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-3: Lenovo ThinkPad Dock Ethernet [Realtek RTL8153B] type: USB
    driver: r8152 bus-ID: 2-3.1:5 chip-ID: 17ef:3062 class-ID: 0000
    serial: <filter>
  IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>

Hi @leCorbeau ,
I wonder whether you can read the following post in order to solve your problem.

β€˜WiFi cannot be enabled after upgrading BIOS - #21 by j8a’

Regards,

I’ll check it out. Thanks. It seems like a lot of solutions offered to these kind of problems suggest switching the kernel. The problem for me is that this is a new problem that only occurred since I switched back down to 5.15 from 6.1 because of another issue with my external monitors turning black just after login. The WiFi was fine on 6.1.1. Now I don’t have the monitors issue but I lost the WiFi so I am already troubleshooting the workaround. I will make a post about the black screen error in 6.1.1 too but I already saw that some people suggest (you guessed it) kernel switching to solve this issue.

See,

https://www.reddit.com/r/ManjaroLinux/comments/11u9zl6/wifi_stopped_working/

I am happy to say I found a solution to this problem. I will share this here in case it could help anyone else. It turns out the latest March linux-firmware breaks the WiFi adapters for ThinkPad T14 Gen 3.
FYI A kernel update to 6.1-* fixes this but I have other painful problems there with black external monitors which is why I downgraded to 5.15.106 (the kernel I know and love from my home laptop Thinkpad x1 carbon)
[SOLUTION]
β†’ March 2023 Linux firmware breaks WiFi for ThinkPad T14 Gen3

List previously installed versions in local cache

ls /var/cache/pacman/pkg/linux-firmware-* -1

Manually downgrade to previous january firmware

sudo pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/linux-firmware-20230117.7e4f0ed-1-any.pkg.tar.zst

Reload driver

sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi && sudo modprobe iwlwifi

Tell pacman to ignore linux-firmware updates until this is sorted upstream

edit /etc/pacman.conf: ← use sudo for this

[options] <- section tag

IgnorePkg = linux-firmware
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Possible fix coming soon. It was flagged on Arch 4/4/2023

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/log/

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