Wifi Problem with Dell Inspiron Laptop

[ChessMasterJoe]

Hey guys,

I just loaded Ubuntu 12.04 on my computer and I'm having some trouble. For some reason it seems like it's not able to detect wireless signals.

I was able to access the internet with an ethernet cable at my fathers house, but I was unable to do it at my apartment. I'm not sure if this is relevant but I figured I'd mention it.

I think my problem is fairly similar to the one found in the following thread, but I'm too ignorant to know the difference. :-/
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1946445

When I opened terminal and typed "rfkill list" It said

0; dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: yes
1: dell-bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: yes

I also tried the FN+F2 key combination with no effect.

Please help.

Thanks,

Joe

[Hadaka]

Hi, looks like you have 2 problem, hardblocked hardware and software

you had to have pressed the F2 key to get into bios to tell the machine where to boot
from. So...press Fn/F2 ONE time and then..

rfkill list

post the results please.

thanks

[Immolatus]

in terminal:

lspci


also is the wifi switch in the on possition? (I know but it happened to me once.)

[ChessMasterJoe]

in terminal:

lspci


also is the wifi switch in the on possition? (I know but it happened to me once.)

I tried putting that in terminal and this is what it said.

No command 'Ispci' found, did you mean:
Command 'lspci' from package 'pciutils' (main)
Ispci: command not found
bigjoey@bigjoey-Inspiron-5720:~$

There is no one and off switch for the wifi

[Hadaka]

Hi, I wanted to clear the hardware block first,looks good now
lets take a look at which wifi card you have to get your wireless working.
please enter and post the results of..

lspci -nn | grep 0280

thanks.


*note lspci ....means ls (list) pci.. (devices attaching to the PCI buss)
the command lspci needs "stuff" after it

[wildmanne39]

Hi, copy and paste this command in the terminal (ctrl+alt+t) please:

wget -N -t 5 -T 10 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57264241/wireless_script && chmod +x wireless_script && ./wireless_script

It will download a script and create a text file in your home folder with wireless information so we can see the condition of your wireless at this time and the Mac address, WPA key and WEP key are removed for your security, then reply back and attach the netinfo.txt file.
Thanks

[ChessMasterJoe]

Hi, I wanted to clear the hardware block first,looks good now
lets take a look at which wifi card you have to get your wireless working.
please enter and post the results of..

lspci -nn | grep 0280

thanks.


*note lspci ....means ls (list) pci.. (devices attaching to the PCI buss)
the command lspci needs "stuff" after it

I typed there command. Here are the results.

bigjoey@bigjoey-Inspiron-5720:~$ lspci -nn | grep 0280
01:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation Device [14e4:4365] (rev 01)
bigjoey@bigjoey-Inspiron-5720:~$ ^C

[ChessMasterJoe]

Hi, looks like you have 2 problem, hardblocked hardware and software

you had to have pressed the F2 key to get into bios to tell the machine where to boot
from. So...press Fn/F2 ONE time and then..

rfkill list

post the results please.

thanks

Thanks for the advice. Here are the results

bigjoey@bigjoey-Inspiron-5720:~$ rfkill list
0: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: dell-bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

Looks like there's some improvement, but the computer still isn't picking up any signals. There's also a little light on the bottom left hand corner the comes on when it's picking up a wifi signal. That light is still off.

[ChessMasterJoe]

Sorry to bump this thread, but I recently installed the 64 bit version of Ubuntu 12.04 on my Dell Laptop again and I'm unable to get the wireless card working. After following all of the steps on page 8, I got the following message after trying to install the package Chili supplied. I also tried the other 64 bit package with the same result. I'll post the terminal data below.

joseph@joseph-Inspiron-5720:~$ sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential dkms
[sudo] password for joseph:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
build-essential is already the newest version.
dkms is already the newest version.
linux-headers-generic is already the newest version.
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
thunderbird-globalmenu
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 128 not upgraded.
joseph@joseph-Inspiron-5720:~$ cd Downloads
joseph@joseph-Inspiron-5720:~/Downloads$ ls
wireless-bcm43142-dkms_6.20.55.19-1_amd64.deb
joseph@joseph-Inspiron-5720:~/Downloads$ sudo dpkg -i wire*.deb
(Reading database ... 166232 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace wireless-bcm43142-dkms 6.20.55.19-1 (using wireless-bcm43142-dkms_6.20.55.19-1_amd64.deb) ...

------------------------------
Deleting module version: 6.20.55.19
completely from the DKMS tree.
------------------------------
Done.
Unpacking replacement wireless-bcm43142-dkms ...
Setting up wireless-bcm43142-dkms (6.20.55.19-1) ...
Loading new wireless-bcm43142-6.20.55.19 DKMS files...
Building only for 3.8.0-29-generic
Building initial module for 3.8.0-29-generic
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 3.8.0-29-generic (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/wireless-bcm43142/6.20.55.19/build/make.log for more information.
joseph@joseph-Inspiron-5720:~/Downloads$ ^C
joseph@joseph-Inspiron-5720:~/Downloads$

[chili555]

Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 3.8.0-29-generic (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/wireless-bcm43142/6.20.55.19/build/make.log for more information.

So, did you consult the log? What does it say?

cat /var/lib/dkms/wireless-bcm43142/6.20.55.19/build/make.log

Probably the last ten or so lines have the problem.