wireless is disabled by hardware switch - natty 11.04

[themightyrumpus]

With due respect to my colleagues, I think it's due to a poor implemetation of the module dell-laptop. Please do:

lsmod | grep dell

If dell-laptop is loaded, remove it:

sudo rmmod -f dell-laptop
sudo rfkill unblock all

Is your wireless working now? If so, we'll need to blacklist dell-laptop.

Dell Inspiron 1545 n series, Broadcom chipset, I have had Ubuntu since 7, internal upgrade for each new distro upgrade.

This jumped up out of nowhere for me, 11.04 was working fine since I put it on ((with some minor cosmetic problems like ccsm totally dying on me)) but all of a sudden my "wireless disabled by hardware" bit me and my F2 key ((which used to shut off wireless and turn it back on just fine)) would not turn on the wireless.

This fix worked.

bummer, but glad to be back

[chili555]

This fix worked.

bummer, but glad to be back

If you are ready to make it permanent, blacklist dell-laptop:

sudo su
echo "blacklist dell-laptop" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
exit

[rawatmohinder]

Hi Chili555,

Thanks a lot for your advice. it fixed by wireless issue. I was searching this problem resolution for 3-4 hours but then when i realize that my wireless driver could be correct, issue is wireless card is disabled. Thanks a lot again for your time to write this article.

Thanks
Mahi

[rawatmohinder]

Hi All,

Just to add, I have a Dell Vostro1520 and my wireless driver is b43 and wireless was not working with ubuntu 11.10. There were two issues. One issue which is discussed in the thread.

1.) Dell wireless card was disabled
2.) Secondly wireless driver was wrong.

How to fix wireless driver problem
-------------------------------------------
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer ( if it did not work, try below command)
$sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-lpphy-installer ( it depends on wirless card model, if this also does not work, it will give you a suggestion based on your hardware, run suggested command)
$ sudo apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source
$ sudo reboot

How to enable dell wireless card
-----------------------------------------
$ rfkill lits ( is it showing any card blocked: yes)

run below mentioned commands to fix
------------------------------------------------
sudo rmmod -f dell-laptop
sudo rfkill unblock all

Confirm, if your wireless is working now? if yes, then Thanks to Chili555 he only provided solution to enable Dell driver.
but first part was not there is this post and i spent 3-4 hours to resolve this problem but if you see this post, you can fix it fast and that is the reason i thought of writting it and giving back to community

Thanks
Mohinder

[rscricket]

I tried rfkill etc but it didn't really work for me.

Finally the following works every time - I have wireless mouse and when I get 'wireless disabled' - I simply take out the mouse's usb connector. This causes wifi to re-trigger automatically and connect.

It seems that usb devices may be interfering with wifi.

Hope this helps.

[jonessoda219]

Does anyone know how to fix this with a lenovo ideapad s10-3? Im running an atheros 9285 adapter with all drivers needed. Please post steps to fix it.
Thank you.