Wifi won't connect on 13.04 with BCM 4313

[Hadaka]

ok..do this
type exit...bring up a new terminal.again
then do.

cd ~/Desktop/hybrid-portsrc_x86_64-v5_100_82_112
 sudo su                          
modprobe -rfv wl
cp wl.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
depmod -a
modprobe -v wl
update-initramfs -u
exit

that should work

[bagelong]

Instructions in post #81 above did not work, so here is what i did:

I reinstalled the broadcom driver from the Ubuntu Software Center
I ran all steps of VSF again
Wi-fi up and running with a good connection.

[Hadaka]

thats weird....ok
as long as it works.
varunendra will no doubt want to see this as well,

[bagelong]

Went ahead and did a reboot, and wi-fi is gone again. I am beginning to think a better solution is to do a fresh install of 12.04. Not sure I am man enough to help you guys resolve this.

I do, however, appreciate so much what you two have done for me. I think I am just failing somewhere along the way, and it doesn't seem to be moving much closer to a final resolution.

[Hadaka]

You have done an awesome job with this, I am not sure why
its not sticking, perhaps if you work with varunendra and do
one command at a time, the reason it fails on boot will be found.
but, you have been great..and thank you for hanging in there with this.

[Hadaka]

one thing i did notice, and it shouldnt make a difference.
your /etc/modules looks like this..

lp
wl
wl

you can..

sudo gedit /etc/modules

back space -remove- one wl
save and close gedit

[varunendra]

Ah, I see I missed a long day! Times goes by really fast some times..

I am beginning to think a better solution is to do a fresh install of 12.04.

bagelong,

First of all, you don't need to cover up something that is apparently our failure. We try what we know from our experience and experience comes from trying and occasionally failing. For example, the post #63 is showing something that I obviously overlooked earlier (due to lack of much experience with bcma driver), and the fix is as easy as blacklisting it too.

Secondly, like I said earlier, you don't need to build the driver everytime once it is built for the current kernel. Just keep it somewhere and copy it over if required at all (and even that shouldn't be required unless we are making some mistake).

Above all, if you are able to build the driver each time (the wl.ko file) and also able to load it and get it working, you have already gone past the most critical and probably the difficult part. The automatic loading, conflict with another driver, etc. issues can be caused by just a few things and there can be multiple workarounds for them. We are just trying to make it happen naturally, otherwise there are ways to 'force' it, so you don't have to do it manually each time.


That being said, if we are not dragging you too far, please try -

echo "blacklist bcma" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

This is the same thing that we did with "brcmsmac" driver earlier, this is one more to be blocked. As per the output in your post #63, the wl driver is already loading fine. It's just that the bcma driver takes over earlier (and then doesn't work, stupid little driver!)

@ Hadaka,
I noticed a minor mistake you did in post #64. You 'modprobe'd the wl driver while it was already loaded. I think you overlooked it as soon as you saw "bcma-pci-bridge" in lspci output (I have done that too in the past ). It had to be unloaded, then loaded again.

@ bagelong,
Even if everything fails but the wl driver we built is working (when manually loaded), I can guarantee that I can make it load automatically. You won't have to do anything manually until next kernel upgrade. (wow! I hope that's not too big a promise )

However, when you say "good connection", just run -

lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net

and check which driver is loaded for your broadcom wireless card (Kernel driver in use). That would be the one we want. If that happens to be the "wl" driver we are working so hard for, then we are on the right track, probably at the 'solution' end of it.

[bagelong]

So, I reinstalled the broadcom driver, then reapplied VSF and all is working. I blacklisted the bcma driver as above. Here is the output of the code from above, indicating the correct driver is in use.

long@long-Lenovo:~$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4727] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation Device [14e4:0608]
	Kernel driver in use: wl
0c:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 07)
	Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:5000]
	Kernel driver in use: r8169

[bagelong]

long@long-Lenovo:~$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
# This file lists those modules which we don't want to be loaded by
# alias expansion, usually so some other driver will be loaded for the
# device instead.

# evbug is a debug tool that should be loaded explicitly
blacklist evbug

# these drivers are very simple, the HID drivers are usually preferred
blacklist usbmouse
blacklist usbkbd

# replaced by e100
blacklist eepro100

# replaced by tulip
blacklist de4x5

# causes no end of confusion by creating unexpected network interfaces
blacklist eth1394

# snd_intel8x0m can interfere with snd_intel8x0, doesn't seem to support much
# hardware on its own (Ubuntu bug #2011, #6810)
blacklist snd_intel8x0m

# Conflicts with dvb driver (which is better for handling this device)
blacklist snd_aw2

# causes failure to suspend on HP compaq nc6000 (Ubuntu: #10306)
blacklist i2c_i801

# replaced by p54pci
blacklist prism54

# replaced by b43 and ssb.
blacklist bcm43xx

# most apps now use garmin usb driver directly (Ubuntu: #114565)
blacklist garmin_gps

# replaced by asus-laptop (Ubuntu: #184721)
blacklist asus_acpi

# low-quality, just noise when being used for sound playback, causes
# hangs at desktop session start (Ubuntu: #246969)
blacklist snd_pcsp

# ugly and loud noise, getting on everyone's nerves; this should be done by a
# nice pulseaudio bing (Ubuntu: #77010)
blacklist pcspkr

# EDAC driver for amd76x clashes with the agp driver preventing the aperture
# from being initialised (Ubuntu: #297750). Blacklist so that the driver
# continues to build and is installable for the few cases where its
# really needed.
blacklist amd76x_edac
blacklist brcmsmac
blacklist bcma

[varunendra]

Both look good to me, does it hold after reboot? And is the performance the 'good' one?

Because at least one user has reported that for him the brcmsmac was performing better. But it can be different for different people.