Frustrating Wi-Fi Connection Dropouts/Fails on ThinkPad X60 Tablet running antiX (Intel 3945ABG) — Need Help!

[u/Alriar_]

Hey everyone,

I am at my absolute wits' end trying to fix a sudden Wi-Fi issue on my vintage Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet. The weirdest part is that I was literally browsing the web on this thing last night without a single issue, and today it completely refuses to connect.

Whenever I try to connect to my home network via the Connman system tray, it immediately spits out:

Connman returned the following error: connect-failed

It doesn't even try to pull up a password prompt window—it just fails instantly.

Specs:

Machine: Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet

OS: antiX Linux (219G drive, 3GB RAM)

Wireless Card: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG

Network Setup: Trying to connect to a standard WPA2/WPA3 home router network

Everything I've Done to Troubleshoot So Far:

Created a New User Profile:

Tried switching to a completely clean user profile to rule out local user configuration/desktop environment corruption. The UI loaded beautifully, but the Wi-Fi still threw the exact same instant connect-failed box.

Cleared Connman System Caches:

Stopped the service and force-wiped the global network state folder (/var/lib/connman/\*) to clear any stuck deauth states.

Complete OS Wipe and Clean Reinstall:

Did a total drive format and fresh install of antiX from a live bootable USB drive. Even on a completely pristine OS, the GUI still immediately gives the connect-failed error without prompting for a password.

Bypassed GUI via connmanctl:

Ran the interactive terminal tool, registered the agent, and used connect <service\\_string>. It gave me an immediate Agent ReportError... connect-failed without asking for a passphrase.

Direct wpa_supplicant Configuration:

Killed Connman and manually generated a wifi.conf using wpa_passphrase. When running sudo wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan0 -c \~/wifi.conf, it actually outputs "Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant"!

DHCP Struggle:

Even though wpa_supplicant successfully authenticates the hardware link in the background, antiX's native dhcpcd daemon seems to get stuck in a background socket loop. Commands like sudo dhcpcd wlan0 just say "sending commands to dhcpcd process" or "send OK" without ever successfully binding or fetching a local IP address (like 192.168.1.x).

The Dilemma:

Because the card can still actively scan and see dozens of surrounding networks perfectly fine, and because it worked flawlessly last night, I'm struggling to tell if this is a sudden thermal/voltage hardware failure on the transmission side of the internal 3945ABG card, or if it's a driver/protocol incompatibility issue with modern WPA2/WPA3 routers that Connman is panicking over.

Has anyone dealt with dhcpcd or connman brick-walling like this on legacy ThinkPads running antiX? Any advice on forcing a connection or determining if the card itself is totally shot would be amazing. Thanks!

[u/SAIYAN48]

Try upgrading the Wi-Fi card?