Rock5B with attached Intel AX210NGW M.2 card not connecting over WPA3 Personal.

[tggjifdhn]

Default Template Information

• DietPi version |
  G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=10
G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=1
G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=2
G_GITBRANCH='master'
G_GITOWNER='MichaIng'
• Distro version | trixie
• Kernel version | Linux DietPi 6.1.115-vendor-rk35xx #1 SMP Thu Feb 19 18:09:57 UTC 2026 aarch64 GNU/Linux
• SBC model | ROCK 5B (aarch64)

Additional Information (if applicable)

• Can this issue be replicated on a fresh installation of DietPi?

• Bug report ID | 1608c592-78d4-4086-baaa-a85ea1f97a1d

Steps to reproduce

Go to dietpi-config > 7 : Network Options: Adapters > WiFi > Attempt connecting to WiFi network with WPA3 Personal security and it will not be successful.

Expected behaviour

• Successful connection.

Actual behaviour

• No connection.

Extra details

Please see file attached:
wifi_diagnostics.txt

[MichaIng]

Since vendor Linux is very old and has a bunch of bugs and code flaws, for such I suggest to test mainline Linux:

cd /tmp
wget https://dietpi.com/downloads/binaries/linux-{image,dtb}-current-rockchip64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-{image,dtb}-current-rockchip64.deb

This installs Linux 6.18. The only real left downside is probably worse VPU (accelerated video decoding) support of mainline Hantro VPU vs Rockchip RKMPP. Also software-wise, e.g. Jellyfin supports RKMPP but not the Hantro VPU driver.

[tggjifdhn]

Thank you Michalng;

Got it working after slight hiccups.

• First I switched to mainline with the commands above:

cd /tmp
wget https://dietpi.com/downloads/binaries/linux-{image,dtb}-current-rockchip64.deb
sudo dpkg -i `linux-{image,dtb}-current-rockchip64.deb

Then:

• Entered dietpi-config > network options adapters, then attempted connecting to wifi.
  Received the output "No WiFi adapter was detected on your device".
• ran dmesg | grep iwl and received the following output:

Detected Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160MHz
Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-89.ucode failed with error -2
no suitable firmware found!
iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-89 is required
check git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git

Turned to Google Gemini and asked for help which suggested:

apt update
apt install firmware-iwlwifi
modprobe -r iwlwifi
modprobe iwlwifi

After which I was able to go to dietpi-config > network options adapters and I did not see the previous output "No WiFi adapter was detected on your device". Instead I was able to see the SSID I wanted to connect.

I attempted to connect but was not able to as WPA3 Personal was still being a stick in the mud.

Again, asked Gemini for help which suggested:
sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
Change key_mgmt to SAE
Change psk to password and enter actual WiFi password instead of pre-shared key.
Add line entry ieee80211w=2.
Apply the changes, exit nano, and enter sudo ifdown wlan0 && sudo ifup wlan0.

Alas, still no success attempting connection to WPA3 Personal network.

Solution

Disregarded LLM and turned to previous issue discussion thread (#6677) MichaIng on Oct 12, 2023

...

1. Replace key_mgmt=WPA-PSK with key_mgmt=SAE
2. Replace psk=<64-digit-hex-password> with sae_password=<password>
3. Add ieee80211w=2
4. Bring up again the network: ifdown wlan0; ifup wlan0

Now I can successfully connect to WPA3 Personal network!

I wonder if these changes to wpa_supplicant.conf would have worked with vendor kernel as well.

[MichaIng]

Wasn't armbian-firmware installed? If you install firmware-iwlwifi, it should remove armbian-firmware since both packages are conflicting.

Good to know that WPA3 requires a dedicated key_mgmt type. So this is something we'd need to implement into https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi/blob/dev/dietpi/func/dietpi-wifidb.

[tggjifdhn]

Yes, you're right armbian-firmware was originally installed then removed via install firmware-iwlwifi.

[MichaIng]

Okay, so this means armbian-firmware lacks the firmware needed for this mainline kernel driver and device: iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-89. There are quite a large number of different ones: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/intel/iwlwifi

armbian-firmware ships only a subset of these, added intentionally to cover some common M.2 modules: armbian/firmware#51
So it would actually be consistent to add the ones needed for the recent AX210NGW as well.

I wonder which firmware was used with vendor Linux 6.1 before 🤔. Interesting that the driver there was happy with whichever different blob. Might indicate that another one could be used as fallback 🤔.

[tggjifdhn]

Believe that ty-a0-gf-a0-59.uc was the firmware with vendor kernel.

=== DietPi WiFi Diagnostics ===
Generated: Thu Feb 26 10:36:36 CST 2026
Hostname: DietPi
Interface detected: wlan0

=== 1. HARDWARE IDENTIFICATION ===
--- USB Devices ---
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 1a40:0101 Terminus Technology Inc. Hub
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 8087:0032 Intel Corp. AX210 Bluetooth
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0bda:2832 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL2832U DVB-T
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 0bda:2838 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL2838 DVB-T
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub

--- PCI Devices ---
No PCI network devices or lspci unavailable

=== 2. LOADED KERNEL MODULES ===
nf_conntrack          122880  5 xt_conntrack,nf_nat,xt_nat,nf_conntrack_netlink,xt_MASQUERADE
rtl2832_sdr            28672  0
iwlmvm                352256  0
rtl2832                24576  0
btrtl                  24576  2 hci_uart,btusb
iwlwifi               327680  1 iwlmvm
dvb_usb_rtl28xxu       32768  0
dvb_usb_v2             28672  1 dvb_usb_rtl28xxu

=== 3. DRIVER INFO for wlan0 ===
driver: iwlwifi
version: 6.1.115-vendor-rk35xx
firmware-version: 59.601f3a66.0 ty-a0-gf-a0-59.uc
expansion-rom-version: 
bus-info: 0002:21:00.0
supports-statistics: yes
supports-test: no
supports-eeprom-access: no
supports-register-dump: no
supports-priv-flags: no

[MichaIng]

Adding to the WPA3 topic:

• Aside of what has been discussed, the sae_pwe=2 setting makes sense as well, so assure that HnP and H2E key derivation methods are supported both, client-side:

sae_pwe=2
network={
        ssid="SSID"
        key_mgmt=SAE
        ieee80211w=2
        sae_password="KEY"
}

The psk value is used as fallback, if sae_password is not defined, but without support for the 64 hex-digit value. As settings aside of key_mgmt need to change anyway, no point to keep using psk in this case, but better sae_password to be more explicit.

Regarding firmware for this M.2 module: I'll add this within the next development cycle.