Wireless Not On or Seen After Fresh Install <SOLVED>

[n8xk]

Sorry All for posting this question, I am sure it has been posted in the past, ( maybe by me!). But I can't seem to find the answer in the forum or my notes.

Just did a fresh install of PCLOS KDE on my Compaq Presario, with a Broadcom BCM4318 wireless card. This machine dual boots with XP and wireless works fine there and did with PCLOS before the fresh install.

Ran  lspci -v

06:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10        Memory at c0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]        Kernel modules: ssb

Then I ran iwconfig and got:

[n8xkn@localhost ~]$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

The Broadcom wireless is listed in the hardware section of the Control Center.

Wireless is there but it will not turn on. I have been able to fix this in the past but I can't remember how to do it.

Thanks
n8xk

[bones113]

If you are able to connect a wired internet connection then go to sysnaptic hit reload and download the package "rfkill" without the quotations. Open a terminal as root then type rfkill list. This will show whether your wireless connection is hard blocked or soft blocked. Post back with the results. It is possible that they are blocked. If it shows any listing as blocked then type rfkill unblock all. Reboot. Let us know the results.

[n8xk]

bones113,
I installed rfkill and ran it, here is the results:

[n8xkn@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost n8xkn]# rfkill list
0: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
[root@localhost n8xkn]# rfkill unblock all
[root@localhost n8xkn]#

No luck with rfkill, however I did find some of my notes but I do not have any instructions with the commands, here they are:

/sbin/lspci -n= 06:02.0 0280:14e4:4318 (rev02)

and:

dmesg | less

and:

/usr/sbin/iwconfig

sudo/usr/sbin/iwlist scan

I tried some of these commands but I did not continue because I am not sure in what order to run  them.

The result of lspci -n is:

[root@localhost n8xkn]# lspci -n
00:00.0 0600: 1002:5950 (rev 01)
00:01.0 0604: 1002:5a3f
00:05.0 0604: 1002:5a37
00:13.0 0c03: 1002:4374
00:13.1 0c03: 1002:4375
00:13.2 0c03: 1002:4373
00:14.0 0c05: 1002:4372 (rev 11)
00:14.1 0101: 1002:4376
00:14.3 0601: 1002:4377
00:14.4 0604: 1002:4371
00:14.5 0401: 1002:4370 (rev 02)
00:14.6 0703: 1002:4378 (rev 02)
00:18.0 0600: 1022:1100
00:18.1 0600: 1022:1101
00:18.2 0600: 1022:1102
00:18.3 0600: 1022:1103
01:05.0 0300: 1002:5955
06:02.0 0280: 14e4:4318 (rev 02)
06:06.0 0200: 10ec:8139 (rev 10)

Hope this will help.
 

[hightower]

n8xk, this may not be related but I had a similar problem today that seems to have been related to the kernel.  After synaptic update on a Toshiba Satellite, wireless worked but then failed after I installed kernel 2.6.38.2-pclos1.bfs. I went back into my default 2.6.32.4-pclos1.bfs and still couldn't get wireless, while dual boot XP had connection.  After another reboot I was able to get wireless manually.  Then discovered that my default menu for kernel 2.6.32.4-pclos1 was instead opening kernel 2.6.38.2.  I reinstalled 2.6.32.24, and again have wireless on boot into same.

[n8xk]

Sorry to here about your trouble with the Toshiba hightower, sounds like you have found a work around.

I have had this same problem in the past with a earlier install, and was able to fix it with a few commands in the terminal. But I did not write them down in any order, so I am lost for now.
I can't seem to find my earlier post in the forum from the same issue, I thought I read some of the old posts were lost a few months ago.

 I kinda goobered things up with my experimenting and needed to do a fresh install. No more tinkering for me on this machine after I get it fixed, and I will put the fix in my notebook properly!

n8xk

[bones113]

Just a few questions. I dont mean to insult your intelligence and you probably have done this but have you done a reset of your modem and router?. Also you might try downloading the windows inf file for your wireless card and try using ndswrapper to see if there are any differences. These may not help but it is worth a shot.

[n8xk]

Ask any and all questions, better to make sure I didn't overlook anything. The router is working fine, I have a HP notebook that connects and so is my son's ipod touch.

I will try the windows inf but I think the main trouble is the radio for the wireless will not turn on. As I said earlier, wireless is on and working in XP but when I boot back into PCLOS I have no radio, the wireless button will not activate the radio. 

Not sure what the "/sbin/lspci -n =" command is but I believe it was key in getting the wireless turned on after the last install. I am upset that I didn't write down the fix the first time this happened.

[n8xk]

Installing the Broadcom .inf file did the trick!

I know this is not how I fixed the problem last time, but all's well that ends well.
I was shooting for the difficult fix that I did not have all information to. I guess the lesson here is to try the easy and obvious first.
I WILL copy this fix into my notes and thanks bones113 for the pointers.

n8xk

[bones113]

Your welcome. I am glad I could help you.

[n8xk]

A little more info to help others.

I looked for but could not find the broadcom .inf file in the windows partition. I did not want to search through the "12" recovery disks to find it. (why does it take 12 CD's to hold a Windows OS?) (I think half of the disks contain proprietary software from Compaq).

So I found the driver for my wireless card with a Google search, downloaded and saved it.
I then installed wine, then opened the .exe file with wine. I could then see the .inf file.
I then opened Network & Internet Configuration and configured the Wifi, choose "Use a Windows driver (with ndiswrapper)", choose "Install a new driver", search where you have the .inf file, click open. After the driver installs finish the Wifi configuration.

Hope this is useful.

n8xk

[rgnr]

Confirm the issue with wlan after update. Might be a kernel/supplicant bug. Manually configuring new connection "fixes the issue", but still annoying, since I use laptop both at home and work.