Installing BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI on 7.10 & 8.04 - Broadcom wifi on a HP dv9000

[jlandaw]

I'm making this Thread to Help others with the problem I had installing my BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI.

I have a HP dv9000 (dv9428nr) Running Ubuntu 7.10(32 bit)
Update: Now running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS 64 bit -it is working but I had a little trouble setting up... I am including a bug-fix that any hardy (8.04) users should use before going forward*

Note: If the output for “lspci | grep Broadcom” is :

“03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 02)”

Then this tutorial will work (baring some bug or alternate configuration you have tried to set up already).

Here is a list of computers that this tutorial has already worked on:
Hp dv2000:
HP dv2415nr
HP dv2418nr

HP dv6000:
HP dv6258se
HP dv6408nr
HP dv6420
HP dv6423om
HP dv6607nr
HP dv6625us
HP dv6636nr
HP dv6660se

HP dv9000:
HP dv9205us
HP dv9428nr

HP tx1000:
HP tx1305
HP tx1499

HP zv5000


Compaq Presario V3000
Compaq Presario V6000
Compaq Presario F500
Compaq Presario F562LA
Compaq Presario F700

Compaq 6515b
Compaq 6720s

Dell Inspiron 1501
Dell Inspiron 9400
Dell Inspiron E1705
Dell Latitude 131L

Acer Extensa 4420-5237

I do believe this will work with almost all hp dv**** and Compaq's (some forums show this to also work with dells...
Edit: If you read the replies to this post they show that many different HP's, Compaq's and Dells all can work by using this method.
Everything I put in here i have taken form other thread/forums, but none were set up in a way that a noob (Beginner) could follow easily.

First we need to do a few things.

You need to have a internet connection, wired since your wifi is not working yet

whenever you see the command "sudo" you will have to enter you password (the characters will not appear as you type.)

Step 1

You will need to download the drivers we will use later.
Download it Here.
Edit: Thanks to rabalder and MrPickle for the non-rapidshare link

Step 2

You do not have to download the next file, we will do later on, in the instillation.
Go here and write down the latest stable release number. On May 27, 2008 the release number was 1.53

Step 3

If you enabled the restricted drivers disable them

System --> Administration --> Restricted Drivers Manager


I guess if you never tried to use them you could try before going thru this...

One more important thing... make sure that you know what way the wifi switch must go to be on... If its off you will never get online (I just went step by step with someone, and we faild to think of the fact that his wifi card was switch off... ) Its an easy thing to miss.
On my Hpdv9000, the switch is on if it is to the right. ===>

Step 4

Next we need to uninstall ndiswrapper & bcm43xx-fwcutter

Open a Terminal (Applications --> Accessories --> Terminal)

Copy each line into the terminal separately (do each line separately in every step)
(you can use ctrl+c to copy out of Firefox, but you have to use either ctrl+alt+v or shift+insert to paste into the terminal.)

sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

sudo apt-get remove bcm43xx-fwcutter

The step is complete even if it does not remove anything (you may not have had those packets installed)

*If you are using Hardy you should run the following bug fix before proceading:

echo -e '\n#hardy ssb bug-fix\nrmmod b43\nrmmod b44\nrmmod ssb\nrmmod ndiswrapper\nmodprobe ndiswrapper\nmodprobe ssb\nmodprobe b44' | sudo tee -a /etc/init.d/rc.local

Edit: I updated the bug fix May 3, 2008 to add the line "modprobe b44", due to the fact that it was missing( this allows your wired lan to be configured.) Thank you to Ayuthia and the Ubuntu documentation site.

Step 5

Now you need to Blacklist the bcm43xx file

In the terminal you can put the following line and a text editor will pop up with the file we need to edit.

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

At the end add

blacklist bcm43xx

Do not put a # in front of it.

*In hardy bcm43xx is already blacklisted, but you need to add:

blacklist b43

You can put it under the blacklist bcm43xxline

Save the file and close the editor

Step 6

If you are reading this from the web and you have not saved it or printed it, you may want to bookmark this page...(I always leave the page open and press shutdown. After you reboot, if you open Firefox it will ask you if you want to resort the session, click yes and you will be right back here....)

Reboot your computer,

Step 7

Lets get the drivers ready to use
Find the file you downloaded and move it to your home folder

your home folder is /home/yourusername

Just in case you missed it... yourusername is your "user name"... whatever you use to log on...
You can right click it wherever it is, copy it and then go to the home folder from places and paste it

next open a terminal and type

tar -xzvf WLANBroadcom.tar.gz

Check and see, there should be a folder in you home folder called WLANBroadcom

you could also accomplish this by extracting the download to you home folder...

Step 8

The next step is going to take some editing on your part,

First type in the terminal the following

uname -r

and write down or copy to text editor (Application--> Accessories--> Text Editor)
the output
you should get something like;

2.6.22-14-generic

Step 9

Install ndiswrapper from source

Now you need to edit five things the following before you put it into the terminal

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install build-essential

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`

sudo ln -s /usr/src/linux-`uname -r` /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build

mkdir -p ~/bcm43xx/ndiswrapper

cd ~/bcm43xx/ndiswrapper

sudo wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper-1.53.tar.gz

tar xvzf ndiswrapper-1.53.tar.gz

cd ndiswrapper*

make distclean

make

sudo make install

All three 'uname -r' need to be replaced with the output you got in step 8 (no " quotes should be in the code)

ie on the third line i put

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic

The other two highlighted items need to be the release number you got in step 2
If it is still 1.53 just leave them like that.

Step 10

Now we are going to install the drivers

In the terminal type

cd /home/yourusername/WLANBroadcom/
sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
ndiswrapper -l

Again yourusername is your "username"

Step 11

Now we need to add ndiswrapper to the modules file

sudo gedit /etc/modules

just add the following at the end of the file and save and close it.

ndiswrapper

Step 12

Enter in terminal

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

sudo ndiswrapper -m

Now you can reboot again, and it should work.


Thanks to :
invaleed
anomsuratno
doorknob60
Enjoy

[italomaia]

Thank you very much dude! It worked like a charm in my Hardy Heron! ö/

[jlandaw]

No problem, glad to help

[zspace]

I just tried all of this on my HP dv6000 (same wireless model though) and it worked fine. I had to run step 9 line by line though, if I put it in all at once I got an error.
But it did work, I restated and just before login the little light turned blue.
I have no problems detecting signal strength, its kicking up my dorms wireless router at almost full strength and the one down the street shows up as a weaker signal.

Thanks a bunch!

-zspace

[jlandaw]

Great to hear its working!!

[knaveman]

gracias beyond words. I was ready to leave ubuntu over all this. confirm working on HP Pavillion DV6607nr broadcom BCM94311mcg (rev 2)

[Alvarin]

Thank you wery much for the solution . It worked for some , unfortunately , it did not work for me ...
I have BCM94311MCG on my Presario F500 , running Hardy Heron ...

[crobinson55331]

Thanks a bunch - I am replying wirelessly. This was may last hurdle before committing to Ubuntu 8.04 as my business machine for my next trip to Asia. Now i can go with confidence.

HP Pavillion dv6258se

[zackymcharvest]

BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 02)<---? will it work on this? I have a HP tx1000(tx1499)and its had many problems...will this work on (rev 02)? I am afraid to do this due to my bad experance with this(i have had to reinstall 4 times today) because every time i try a method it breaks all future attempts to get the wifi working. so (rev 02)??

[Ayuthia]

BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 02)<---? will it work on this? I have a HP tx1000(tx1499)and its had many problems...will this work on (rev 02)? I am afraid to do this due to my bad experance with this(i have had to reinstall 4 times today) because every time i try a method it breaks all future attempts to get the wifi working. so (rev 02)??

There is a good chance that this one will work. Most HP laptops seem to be able to use the same driver. NDISwrapper is most likely the way to go right now for you because I have heard that the patch that allows the 4311 rev 02 chipset to work with this kernel and the b43 driver could not be applied because it breaks most of the other chipsets.