Dell E1505 with 12.04 LTS Wireless issues

[SimpsonTruckDriver]

Using another post, I am going to show what the system gives me. It's a Dell Inspiron E1505, 2Gb RAM. I'm using the Verizon MiFi 2200 hooked to USB to connect right now. If I go to Windows Vista, I get into my home wireless network fine, but coming over to Ubuntu, not so much. So, here's what I did...

lspci -nn | grep 0280
shows:

0b:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311] (rev 01)
And...

lsmod | grep -e wl -e b43

shows:

wl 2646601 0
lib80211 14040 1 wl
And...

rfkill list all

shows:

0: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
In Windows Vista, Fn-F2 turns on the Wireless (light). But, the light won't turn on, wireless won't work, etc. It looks like the driver is ok. So, is there anything additional I need to try/do?

Thanks!
TS

[O2Blevel]

Fn+F2 will turn on/off the wireless but there is no indicator to tell you whether it's on or off.

Did you do this process yet?

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter
sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

[SimpsonTruckDriver]

I did those steps, wireless card still won't start.

TS

[O2Blevel]

I saw the b43 reference in your first post and I thought you were using the same driver as I do, I also have a Dell E1505, but now I see you're using the Broadcom STA driver from the 'additional drivers'.

Here's a thread that should get it working:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1967515&highlight=jockey

You may also want to check the 'known issues' in this link:

http://wiki.debian.org/wl/#Known_Issues

[SimpsonTruckDriver]

Typing:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source

gives Reinstallation of bcmwl-kernel-source is not possible, it cannot be downloaded

Typing

sudo modprobe wl

gives no answer.

Typing

sudo modprobe -r wl
sudo modprobe -r bcma
sudo modprobe brcmsmac

gives no answer.

Typing

sudo su
echo "blacklist wl" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
echo "blacklist bcma" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
echo brcmsmac >> /etc/modules
exit

And rebooting gives NO wireless.

lsmod | grep -e wl -e bcma -e brcmsmac

gives

brcmsmac 540875 0
mac80211 436455 1 brcmsmac
brcmutil 14675 1 brcmsmac
cfg80211 178679 2 brcmsmac,mac80211
crc8 12781 1 brcmsmac
cordic 12487 1 brcmsmac
wl 2646601 0
lib80211 14040 1 wl

Typing

dmesg | grep -e brcm -e wlan
iwconfig

Gives
ppp0 no wireless extensions.
lo no wireless extensions.
eth1 no wireless extensions.

Typing

rfkill list all

Shows

0: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

Going into "Additional Drivers", the Broadcom one is listed, un-activated, but refuses to activate (I'm guessing that's the point). But, still no wireless (Fn-F2 will not turn on the wireless). Interestingly , 10.04 LTS worked fine with the wireless, did a full removal of the old one and installed 12.04 LTS on a cleaned partition.

Any other ideas?

TS

[SimpsonTruckDriver]

Any ideas?

TS

[dwhitney67]

Any ideas?

TS

I just spent the afternoon trying to resurrect an old E1505 that I have with Kubuntu 12.04. I had the same issues you described. After Googling a bit, I came up with something that worked -- hopefully it will work for you too.



sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source

# If the following file does not exist, don't sweat it.
# However, you may need to comment out bcm43xx in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-bcm43.conf

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter

After installing b43-fwcutter, make sure to REBOOT your PC!!

Then run the following Terminal commands:

sudo modprobe -r b43 b44 b43legacy ssb

sudo modprobe b43

Then RETEST wireless.

Sure enough, when pressing Fn-F2, the WiFi LED lit up. All I had to do then was setup a connection to my router.

But, I noticed that my wired-interface was no longer running; so I ran the following (note, I'm not certain whether the removal of b44 could have been deleted from the step performed earlier):


sudo modprobe b44

To complete the exercise, reboot your system. Verify whether the wireless and the wired interfaces are both up/running.


/sbin/ifconfig

If all is well, then disconnect your LAN cable and go wireless!

[SimpsonTruckDriver]

Yep, that worked!

TS