Realtek RTL8852BE-VT (PCI ID: 10ec:b520) Wi-Fi Not Working on Ubuntu 22.04(Solve...

System Information

• Laptop: HP Victus 15-fa2xxx

• Operating System: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• Kernel: 6.8.0-124-generic

• Secure Boot: Disabled

Problem Description

The built-in Wi-Fi adapter is not working under Ubuntu. The system detects the PCI device, but no wireless interface is created and no kernel driver is bound to the device.

The same hardware works correctly in Windows.

Hardware Information

Windows identifies the adapter as:

Realtek RTL8852BE-VT Wireless LAN WiFi 6 PCI-E NIC

Hardware ID:

Windows Device manager showing the info

PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_B520&SUBSYS_88E9103C

PCI Device Detection

Command

lspci -nnk

Relevant Output

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device [10ec:b520]
    DeviceName: Realtek Wireless LAN + BT
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:88e9]

Unlike other devices, there is no:

Kernel driver in use:
Kernel modules:

section for the Wi-Fi device.

Loaded Wi-Fi Driver Modules

Command

lsmod | grep rtw

Output

(no output)

No Realtek rtw89 modules are loaded.

Installed Driver

Command

modinfo rtw89_8852be

Relevant Output

filename:
/lib/modules/6.8.0-124-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/rtw89_8852be.ko

modinfo rtw89_8852be lists aliases for PCI IDs 10ec:b852 and 10ec:b85b, but not 10ec:b520:

10ec:b852
10ec:b85b

There is no alias for 10ec:b520.

Kernel Alias Check

Command

grep -i "10EC.*B520" /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/modules.alias

Output

(no output)

Manual Driver Loading

Command

sudo modprobe rtw89_8852be

Result

modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'rtw89_8852be': Invalid argument

Relevant dmesg Output

rtw_8852b: disagrees about version of symbol ...
rtw_8852b: Unknown symbol ...

DKMS Status

Command

dkms status

Output

(no output)

No third-party DKMS drivers are currently installed.

Troubleshooting Performed

I have already tried the following:

• Disabled Secure Boot.

• Updated Ubuntu packages.

• Booted different 6.8 kernels.

• Installed and later removed the out-of-tree lwfinger/rtw89 driver.

• Reloaded the rtw89 modules.

• Verified the hardware using lspci.

• Checked lsmod, modinfo, modules.alias, dmesg, and journalctl.

None of these steps resolved the issue.

Why this question is different from:

How to solve "No Wi-Fi Adapter Found" error with Realtek RTL8852BE WiFi 6 802.11ax PCIe in Ubuntu 22.04?

I have already reviewed the existing question:

How to solve "No Wi-Fi Adapter Found" error with Realtek RTL8852BE WiFi 6 802.11ax PCIe in Ubuntu 22.04?

However, my issue appears to be different for the following reasons.

Different hardware revision

The linked question concerns the following device:

10ec:b852

My adapter is identified by Windows as:

Realtek RTL8852BE-VT Wireless LAN WiFi 6 PCI-E NIC PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_B520&SUBSYS_88E9103C

Ubuntu also detects the device as:

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device [10ec:b520]

This is a different PCI device ID from the one in the linked question.

Questions

1. Does Ubuntu 22.04 (kernel 6.8) support the RTL8852BE-VT (PCI ID 10ec:b520)?

2. Is this PCI ID supported only in newer Linux kernels?

3. Is there a newer or backported rtw89 driver that supports this device on Ubuntu 22.04?

4. Do my diagnostics indicate a configuration problem, or is this likely a missing driver/kernel support issue?

Final update (Solved):

The issue is now resolved.

My laptop has a Realtek RTL8852BE-VT (PCI ID: 10ec:b520) on Ubuntu 22.04 running kernel 6.8.0-124-generic. The in-kernel driver was either unstable or incompatible with this hardware revision.

What finally worked was installing the latest morrownr/rtw89 DKMS driver:

git clone https://github.com/morrownr/rtw89
cd rtw89
sudo make cleanup_target_system
sudo dkms install $PWD
sudo make install_fw
sudo cp rtw89.conf /etc/modprobe.d/

Initially, I tried loading rtw89_8852be, which failed with:

modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'rtw89_8852be': Invalid argument

Looking at dmesg showed symbol version mismatch errors because I was loading the wrong module. My hardware actually uses the rtw89_8852bte_git driver.

Loading the correct module solved the problem:

sudo modprobe rtw89_8852bte_git

After that:

Kernel driver in use: rtw89_8852bte_git
Kernel modules: rtw89_8852bte_git

The wlo1 interface appeared, NetworkManager detected it normally, Wi-Fi networks were visible again, and I was able to connect successfully.

Thanks to Mr. David for pointing me toward the driver. Genuinely, thank you so much for your help.

The rtw89 seems to support your RTL8852BE-VT for kernels greater than 6.6. You could try the driver here.

https://github.com/morrownr

I think yours is on this. (rtw89_8852be). However, it will involve working with sources and the ubuntu DKMs (Auto rebuild mechanism for drivers etc).

There are detailed instructions on the site but I have added them here too.

Compatible Kernels

Kernels: greater than 6.6

You can remove the current driver with the following command

sudo modprobe -r rtw_8852be

sudo modprobe rtw_8852be should re-install it

DKMS

Use dkms status to identify the device driver (RTW89_8852BE_VT) for each successfully built kernel. Your original driver source could/will have an uninstall to uninstall it. If not then you could uninstall it as follows: -

Typical output of dkms status

rtw89_8852be/X.XX.X.X, 6.8.0-124-generic, x86_64: installed

Typical removal from the dkms. If it is removed it should also stop the driver installing but you might have to reboot to achieve this. You need to use your details of the driver you have installed but here are are some examples. (Note: Only uninstall from non-active or broken driver kernels.)

dkms remove rtw89_8852be/x.x.x.x --all
dkms remove rtw89_8853be/x.x.x.x -k  6.8.0-124-generic -a x86_64

installation

Open a gnome-terminal

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade #normal updates

sudo apt install -y build-essential dkms git iw #Tools needed

mkdir -p ~/src #make a directory to place the sources

cd ~/src #move to directory

git clone https://github.com/morrownr/rtw89 #download sources

cd ~/src/rtw89 #Move into sources

sudo make cleanup_target_system

sudo dkms install $PWD

make clean modules && sudo make install

sudo make install_fw

`sudo cp -v rtw89.conf /etc/modprobe.d/`

I believe the user used sudo modprobe rtw89_8852bte_git at this stage but I have a feeling just a reboot would allow the driver to install correctly.

If you are running secure boot and you have not installed a mokkey the driver will not get signed so it will not run.

If you have using secure boot you need to sign the driver so you need to have a mok key pair located at /var/lib/shim-signed/mok/ (Creating these is beyond the scope of this answer.) but see

https://github.com/dkms-project/dkms?tab=readme-ov-file#secure-boot

I think it is a good idea to reboot before you starting testing.

To check the driver is installed in the dkms (for auto build when the kernel gets updated) run the following

sudo dkms status

I hope this is of some help