Dell XPS12 wireless

[pmb2]

fa2k@electron:~$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not possible due to RF-kill

I also tried booting with the dell_laptop , dell_wmi or wmi modules blacklisted.

(this is kind of off topic..) I bought a Netgear 300 WLAN dongle, but it had the same problem as the other USB dongle -- worked at first, but slow, then completely stopped working after ~5min. I then started a windows vm and assigned the dongle to it. Still same problem. I finally found I could use the USB tethering option on my phone, and I'm now on the internet! (there's no ethernet where I am so i need the wifi)

Thanks for all the tips and help jeremy31. It's a weird problem, don't think I'll be able to fix it, but maybe if I find way to boot into windows.

(suppose I could try PCI forwarding (or what it's called) on Qemu too, and try to assign the built in card to windows...)

[pmb2]

I found that the internal WiFi card works(!!) when I go into suspend mode and then resume. This is a big surprise, and seems like an acceptable solution, and a fantastic improvement. Maybe i should file a bug somewhere though.

[jeremy31]

I found that the internal WiFi card works(!!) when I go into suspend mode and then resume. This is a big surprise, and seems like an acceptable solution, and a fantastic improvement. Maybe i should file a bug somewhere though.

It would be a good idea

[PaulPrice]

I'm hitting the same problem (with the same workaround: hard blocked on fresh boot, works after suspend) on a Dell Inspiron 3531. Did you have any luck with the bug report? Could you please post a link? And if you have any further information you could share, I would be grateful.

Thanks,

Paul.

[PaulPrice]

Turns out this was a BIOS configuration problem.

We noticed a similar behaviour in ******* (8.1) --- WiFi would work on a fresh boot, but wouldn't work after suspend. I discovered that the blue "Fn" key didn't have the expected behaviour in *******, e.g., Fn+F2 wouldn't turn the WiFi on/off, Fn+F11 or Fn+F12 wouldn't control the volume, BUT those functions would work without the "Fn" key depressed, e.g., F2 itself turned WiFi on/off, F11 and F12 controlled the volume. With a bit of help from Google, I found a BIOS setting (Advanced --> Function Key Behavior --> Function Key) that implemented the Correct Behaviour (In the process of debugging this, I updated the BIOS version; I'm not certain I had that choice in the old version, but I probably did). WiFi now appears to work reliably in both ******* and Ubuntu, and I can turn it on/off in both with Fn+F2.