Comfast Wi-Fi Dongle Not Getting Recognized

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Bren McGuire
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Comfast Wi-Fi Dongle Not Getting Recognized

Unread post by Bren McGuire »

Following the guide (https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Wiki_Mi ... WiFi-setup) I bought this Wi-Fi key: https://aliexpress.com/item/1005006115364282.html

According to the guide it should work out of the box: "Comfast CF-812AC (USB ID 0bda:b812, 5GHz capable, works out of the box)"

But it doesn't: when I run the script I get this message "No wlan0 interface detected".

What should I do know? Will it work if installed manually or it's just not compatible?

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Re: Comfast Wi-Fi Dongle Not Getting Recognized

Unread post by bbond007 »

Bren McGuire wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 8:02 am

What should I do know? Will it work if installed manually or it's just not compatible?

Have tested the adapter using any other devices?

You need to log into the console (F9) and type "dmesg" (after pluging in the adapter) and see if the adapter is being recognized by Linux.

Sometimes they switch the chipsets in these cheap wifi adapters without changing the model numbers.

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Re: Comfast Wi-Fi Dongle Not Getting Recognized

Unread post by Bren McGuire »

bbond007 wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 2:23 pm

Have tested the adapter using any other devices?

You need to log into the console (F9) and type "dmesg" (after pluging in the adapter) and see if the adapter is being recognized by Linux.

Sometimes they switch the chipsets in these cheap wifi adapters without changing the model numbers.

I did not test it in windows because this dongle, strangely, has a partition on it with the manual and drivers to install, and I don't want to install the drivers.

20231220-160247-1.jpg

Here, linux does recognize it (bcdDevice is 0.00)

I see that the USB ID is slightly different: Instead of 0bda:b812 is 0bda:c812

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Re: Comfast Wi-Fi Dongle Not Getting Recognized

Unread post by bbond007 »

Bren McGuire wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 8:02 am

According to the guide it should work out of the box: "Comfast CF-812AC (USB ID 0bda:b812, 5GHz capable, works out of the box)"

Your device ID is c812 (not b812) which is likely the issue.

The Linux kernel config may need updated and recompiled to make this adapter work.

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Re: Comfast Wi-Fi Dongle Not Getting Recognized

Unread post by Bren McGuire »

bbond007 wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 3:28 pm

Your device ID is c812 (not b812) which is likely the issue.

The Linux kernel config may need updated and recompiled to make this adapter work.

And will it be updated? Or I can forget it?

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Re: Comfast Wi-Fi Dongle Not Getting Recognized

Unread post by blacklistedcard »

You can submit the code changes in github and do a pull request to add the usb id/vid

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Re: Comfast Wi-Fi Dongle Not Getting Recognized

Unread post by ExCyber »

bbond007 wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 2:23 pm

Sometimes they switch the chipsets in these cheap wifi adapters without changing the model numbers.

This is true, and sure enough, the Comfast web site has separate product pages for CF-812AC and CF-812AC V2, although the V1 is oddly labeled as "new" while the V2 is not.

Either way, I doubt that just adding the ID to the existing driver will work. It's probably necessary to build a backported rtw88 driver for MiSTer.

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Re: Comfast Wi-Fi Dongle Not Getting Recognized

Unread post by Bren McGuire »

blacklistedcard wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2023 10:27 am

You can submit the code changes in github and do a pull request to add the usb id/vid

Thanks, but what you just wrote could be Aramaic and I wouldn't know the difference.

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