Help! Wireless card disabled, unable to enable it

[igloo88]

I can't connect to the Internet through my wireless card. Plus, it's disabled and I can't enable it. It's grayed-out in the Network Manager on the top panel.

I ran this code in a terminal:

*****@ubuntu:~$ sudo lshw -C network
[sudo] password for ******: 
  *-network DISABLED      
       description: Wireless interface
       product: PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:0c:00.0
       logical name: wmaster0
       version: 02
       serial: 00:1b:77:9c:17:57
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwl3945 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abg
       resources: irq:29 memory:f9fff000-f9ffffff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 02
       serial: 00:1c:23:8d:75:31
       size: 100MB/s
       capacity: 100MB/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=b44 driverversion=2.0 duplex=full ip=192.168.0.80 latency=64 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100MB/s
       resources: irq:17 memory:f9bfe000-f9bfffff

How do i enable it? or do i have to reinstall my wireless drivers?

btw, I'm running Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit

[adam814]

Have you tried simply bringing up the interface with ifconfig?

sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

If that doesn't do the trick you should make sure to delete any sections in /etc/network/interfaces that refer to wlan0 or wmaster0.

[igloo88]

no that didn't work. and all i have in interface is

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

I don't think its the wireless card problem i think its the software it self.
like this is the message i get when start of up my computer.

Jan 23 15:16:36 ubuntu avahi: Avahi detected that your currently configured local DNS server serves
Jan 23 15:16:36 ubuntu avahi: a domain .local. This is inherently incompatible with Avahi and thus
Jan 23 15:16:36 ubuntu avahi: Avahi disabled itself. If you want to use Avahi in this network, please
Jan 23 15:16:36 ubuntu avahi: contact your administrator and convince him to use a different DNS domain,
Jan 23 15:16:36 ubuntu avahi: since .local should be used exclusively for Zeroconf technology.
Jan 23 15:16:36 ubuntu avahi: For more information, see http://avahi.org/wiki/AvahiAndUnicastDotLocal

[chili555]

Please let us see:

rfkill list

Thanks.

[igloo88]

ok, here it is.

lingam@ubuntu:~$ rfkill list
0: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: yes
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

[chili555]

Hard blocked: yes

That usually means the hardware wireless switch on the front or side of your laptop has become nudged over to 'off.' Nudge it back and you'll be all set.

[igloo88]

no it's not. Thats the first thing i checked.

[chili555]

Let's try something else:

sudo rmmod -f dell-laptop
rfkill list

Any joy?

[igloo88]

IT WORKED! Thank-you!!
But, it seems that I have to run the code every time I login to Ubuntu. Is there a way i can have automatically run the code at startup?

[chili555]

The module dell-laptop may have some other functions aside from crippling your wireless. If other keys or funtions now do not work correctly, we may have other work to do. Post back if you need more help.

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Add a single line:

blacklist dell-laptop

Proofread, save and close gedit and you should be set.