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rt2800usb fix for Ralink/MediaTek 3070 [Gentoo / Linux]

I just received a $4.39 USB WiFi adapter from a Hong Kong eBay seller (auction titled “Mini 150M USB WiFi Wireless N LAN Network Adapter 802.11n/g/b”) that has a Ralink 3070 chipset. I tried the rt2800usb driver in gentoo-sources-3.7.9 and got “Invalid RF chipset 0x3070 detected” in dmesg when I plugged the adapter in. The 2012-11-29 drivers from the MediaTek website compiled and loaded OK but they wouldn’t work with wpa_supplicant, and they spammed dmesg. But, luckily I was able to get rt2800usb working by making a few changes to the kernel sources. I’m not getting stellar transfer rates (max ~20 Mbps even though wavemon claims 150 Mbps), but it’s fine for my uses.

lsusb shows this for the adapter:

148f:3070 Ralink Technology, Corp. RT2870/RT3070 Wireless Adapter

I basically just made the driver treat the 0x3070 RF module as a 0x5370:

--- /usr/src/linux/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2800.h
+++ rt2800.h
@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@
 #define RF3320            0x000b
 #define RF3322            0x000c
 #define RF3053            0x000d
+#define RF3070            0x3070
 #define RF3290            0x3290
 #define RF5360            0x5360
 #define RF5370            0x5370

--- /usr/src/linux/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2800lib.c
+++ rt2800lib.c
@@ -2221,6 +2221,7 @@
      break;
   case RF5360:
   case RF5370:
+   case RF3070:
   case RF5372:
   case RF5390:
   case RF5392:
@@ -2234,6 +2235,7 @@
       rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF3322) ||
       rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF5360) ||
       rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF5370) ||
+      rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF3070) ||
       rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF5372) ||
       rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF5390) ||
       rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF5392)) {
@@ -2746,6 +2748,7 @@
   case RF3290:
   case RF5360:
   case RF5370:
+   case RF3070:
   case RF5372:
   case RF5390:
   case RF5392:
@@ -4775,6 +4778,7 @@
   case RF3322:
   case RF5360:
   case RF5370:
+   case RF3070:
   case RF5372:
   case RF5390:
   case RF5392:
@@ -5094,6 +5098,7 @@
         rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF3322) ||
         rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF5360) ||
         rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF5370) ||
+        rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF3070) ||
         rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF5372) ||
         rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF5390) ||
         rt2x00_rf(rt2x00dev, RF5392)) {
@@ -5182,6 +5187,7 @@
   case RF3290:
   case RF5360:
   case RF5370:
+  case RF3070:
   case RF5372:
   case RF5390:
   case RF5392:

I also had to download firmware for the dongle:

git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git
cd linux-firmware
cp -a rt*.bin /lib/firmware

EDIT 9/11/2013:
I’m not actually using the dongle anymore with Linux; even though this fix allows it to work in some cases, it will still intermittently drop out or refuse to associate with my AP. Since the patch has worked for so many people, I might just have a flaky unit. In any case, I’m going to swap out my mini-PCIe card instead.

geekamole

18 responses to “rt2800usb fix for Ralink/MediaTek 3070 [Gentoo / Linux]”

  1. The solution worked perfectly.

    Had to do the changes manually – since “patch” failed, but it took 5 minutes in total.

    Thanks

    Reply

  2. I’m glad it worked for you too. I don’t manually patch my kernel often, so I think the paths are incorrect for “patch.”

    Reply

  3. Thank you for posting the how-to!
    I have managed to apply your changes and compile the module for openSUSE 12.2 (Mantis) (x86_64) (3.4.33-2.24 kernel) and then cross compile for Raspbian wheezy (3.6.11 kernel).
    You could submit the patch to the Linux kernel.

    Reply

  4. PLEASE HELP!!!
    I’ve spent 7 hours, its currently 3am right now, trying to get this stupid adapter to work. Im desperate. Im noobish at best with linux. Im using a raspberry pi kernal 3.6.11+ and have no clue what to do. If you can guide me on how to do all this but with the pi, tha’d be awesome. Also on the pi /usr/src/linux/drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2800lib.c doesnt exist. the /src folder is completely empty.

    Reply

  6. Your algorithm (“[make] the driver treat the 0×3070 RF module as a 0×5370”) worked for me using rpi-3.6.y kernel source from github. Thanks!

    Reply

  7. Hi,

    I have the same problem but as im new to linux (using lubuntu) im not sure how to carry out the above procedure. Any help is well appreciated.

    Reply

  8. I’ve also bought a cheap adapter from China that I want to use with the Raspberry Pi. It seems some people here have got it working by “cross compiling kernel” I don’t know what this means! I wonder what I need to do to get this working? Any other comments to help with Raspberry Pi users?

    Reply

  10. How can I compile the kernel with these patch for the OpenELEC (Raspberry Pi) distribution? Can you help me? 🙂

    Reply

  12. Hi

    I have some problems compiling the drivers from MediaTek website. When I run make the script fails at:
    “make[1]: Entering directory `/lib/modules/3.6.11/build’
    make[1]: *** No rule to make target `modules’. Stop.”

    At the make file LINUX_SRC is “/lib/modules/3.6.11/build”. I have tried also with “/usr/src/linux-headers-3.6.11/” but then it complains about not finding file called “memory.h”.

    I have no idea about kernel patching, maybe someone could get some help with that?

    I’m running on raspbmc. Uname -a says:
    “Linux raspbmc 3.6.11 #2 PREEMPT Sat Jun 15 21:45:28 UTC 2013 armv6l GNU/Linux”

    Reply

  13. best would be to report the issue and provide the patch to the kernel developers so it would be included there. only this way all would benefit from this and it will be solved.

    Reply

  14. Petr,

    could you provide a link to the drivers that you compiled? I couldn’t understand how to cross-compile.

    thanks,

    orlando

    Reply

  15. Finally I could understand how to compile a new driver for the Raspberry Pi and posted it on a blog. It is in portuguese, but I think that google can translate fairly well :

    http://androideia.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/problemas-com-adaptador-usb-wi-fi-ralink-2870-3070-em-raspberry-pi-e-linux/

    Later I will link the binary that I compiled for my raspberry (kernel 3.6.y), for people that are having problems to compile it by themselves.

    Thanks for sharing the solution!

    Reply

  16. Thank you for the precious information.
    I can also use Wifi now by my Pie.
    It is very hot in today’s Nagoya (Japan).

    Reply

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