Howto: BCM4310 (Dell Wireless 1490) wit bcm43xx driver (no Ndiswrapper)

[der_vegi]

until today i've been using ndiswrapper with my dell wireless 1490 card on my dell inspiron 1501 notebook with feisty amd64 installed. ndiswrapper was kind of working, but connecting to my wpa network took ages and did not alway succeed.
the bcm43xx driver provided with feisty didn't really work because after a couple of minutes pings went to 4000ms, download rates to about 20K.

but then i read this post on the bcm43xx developer mailing list. i downloaded the newest standalone driver, built it and now bcm43xx works like a charm, connecting very fast to my network and with good connection speed, especially if i set the rate to 11M.

so if you're new to ubuntu, i would propose the following steps to get your card working:

0. if you have ndiswrapper installed: uninstall it, remove it from /etc/modules and remove bcm43xx from /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist .

1. get linux-source, build-essential

sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install linux-source

2. install the bcm43xx-fwcutter tool:

sudo apt-get install bcm43xx-fwcutter

it will ask you to download the firmware, which you should do.

3. download the newest version of the bcm43xx driver:

wget ftp://lwfinger.dynalias.org/patches/bcm43xx-softmac-sa.tar.bz2 .

,unpack it

tar -xf bcm43xx-softmac-sa.tar.bz2

and change to the created directory

cd bcm43xx-softmac-sa

4. build the driver and install it

make
sudo make install

5.a (only if you have ndiswrapper loaded: )

modprobe -r ndiswraper

5.b
load the driver and enjoy

modprobe bcm43xx

this worked for me with ubuntu feisty amd64, kernel 2.6.20-15-generic and the following card:

sudo lspci -vnn
05:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 UART [14e4:4312] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Dell Unknown device [1028:0007]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
        Memory at c0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [d0] Express Legacy Endpoint IRQ 0

edit: if your wireless LED doesn't turn on, your wireless card might be turned off by default in the bios or by the fn+f2 key. just to make sure, that this is not the problem, go into your bios, turn wireless on by default and turn the control by the fn-key off, like they recommend in the opensuse hardware-database: "Also disable wireless card hotkey in BIOS to ensure that wireless networking stays on"

maybe you could also try another firmware. the bcm43xx developer recommends on his site the following drivers:

For 32-bit systems, use these links. Version of driver Link for download ---------------- ----------------- 3.70.22.0 http://sidulus.textdrive.com/bcmwl5sys.zip 3.30.15.0 http://members.driverguide.com/drive...riverid=258304 For 64-bit systems, use these links Version of driver Link for download ---------------- ----------------- 3.100.64.10 http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/drivers.php (NOT for BCM431 3.70.17.5 http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/drivers.php (for BCM431

[lbyrd33]

I had done pretty much the same thing about a month ago on my new laptop and it worked fine.

[frediship]

worked like a charm

[synogenes]

This hasn't worked for me. I'm on a Dell Inspiron 1501 with a bcm4310 UART built-in wireless card with Feisty 7.04. I followed the instructions to the letter and get a Status: Disconnected in the Connection Properties dialog after reboot.

Whereas before following the procedure I could run iwlist wlan0 scan and detect the wireless router, I now get wlan0 interface doesn't support scanning : no such device.

Nothing lost, it wasn't working anyway but I can't see why. There were no errors showing at any point.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's my router as I've tried everything I can find to get the card connecting. The router works just fine on every other machine wired and wireless though.

[robbie carrobie]

thanks i am a total noob and i managed to follow these very clearly defined instructions and now my laptop can pick up my wireless network - kind regards Robert.

[Hero of Time]

Originally Posted by synogenes This hasn't worked for me. I'm on a Dell Inspiron 1501 with a bcm4310 UART built-in wireless card with Feisty 7.04. I followed the instructions to the letter and get a Status: Disconnected in the Connection Properties dialog after reboot. Whereas before following the procedure I could run iwlist wlan0 scan and detect the wireless router, I now get wlan0 interface doesn't support scanning : no such device. Nothing lost, it wasn't working anyway but I can't see why. There were no errors showing at any point. I'm beginning to wonder if it's my router as I've tried everything I can find to get the card connecting. The router works just fine on every other machine wired and wireless though.

What does "iwlist eth1 scan" produce? It could be that your interface changed name. Use "iwlist scan" to use all interfaces to scan for wireless signals. There you should be able to see your proper interface name.

[der_vegi]

Originally Posted by synogenes This hasn't worked for me. I'm on a Dell Inspiron 1501 with a bcm4310 UART built-in wireless card with Feisty 7.04. I followed the instructions to the letter and get a Status: Disconnected in the Connection Properties dialog after reboot. Whereas before following the procedure I could run iwlist wlan0 scan and detect the wireless router, I now get wlan0 interface doesn't support scanning : no such device. Nothing lost, it wasn't working anyway but I can't see why. There were no errors showing at any point. I'm beginning to wonder if it's my router as I've tried everything I can find to get the card connecting. The router works just fine on every other machine wired and wireless though.

well, i once had a simular problem. have you pressed the FN + F2 key? try pressing it. is the wireless led on? have you activated wireless by default in the bios?

are all the modules loaded? try the following

 lsmod | grep -i ndiswrapper

does it show nidswrapper loaded? then you should unload it with

sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper

and then remove ndiswrapper from the file /etc/modules .
is the bcm module loaded correctly?

 lsmod | grep -i bcm43xx

the output should look like this

bcm43xx               138088  0 
ieee80211softmac       35328  1 bcm43xx
ieee80211              37576  2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac

if it is an issue of the Fn-key, maybe you try (worked for me with ndiswrapper) unloading bcm43xx

sudo modprobe -r bcm43xx

press FN + F2

sudo modprobe bcm43xx

[synogenes]

Thanks all.

The sudo eth1 scan produces:
eth1 interface doesn't support scanning.

I followed through the removal check on nsidwrapper with no impact.

lsmod | grep -i bcm43xx produces:
bcm43xx 127464 0
ieee80211softmac 31872 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 35016 2 bcm43xx, ieee80211softmac

So I guess that means the driver is loaded. But since I get no panel light showing wireless, the device isn't recognised. The FN 2 doesn't turn the light on or off.

I guess I'll start from scratch and try the ndiswrapper again. That recognised the card and the FN 2 seemed to work and recognised wlan0. If that doesn't work, I'll try stripping off ndiswrapper and repeating the fwcutter method.

[ghrey]

I also have ubuntu 7.04 64 on my inspiron 1501 (Wireless 1490 card) I can see the wireless networks but I cannot connect to them, I went through the how to and still am not able to connect, I also restarted to see if that would have any effect, and it did not. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[cidi]

Originally Posted by ghrey I also have ubuntu 7.04 64 on my inspiron 1501 (Wireless 1490 card) I can see the wireless networks but I cannot connect to them, I went through the how to and still am not able to connect, I also restarted to see if that would have any effect, and it did not. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

This is something that it is happening also to me with ndswrapper installed. It happens not always but only sometimes. I am not sure, but when the display get locked because you do not use the PC, after I cannot reconnect to the wireless network.