Wireless Problem w/ Dell Inspiron 1300 on 10.04

[Tobin-Tobin]

This is my first post on here and i have only installed ubuntu yesterday having used Windows my entire life - so please go easy. I am struggling with even basic tasks so you'll have to talk me through EVERYTHING, sorry

PROBLEM: I have installed ubuntu 10.04 on my Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop. I cannot seem to connect to any wireless networks now. It does not even seem to see any networks. I presume that ubuntu has found my wireless controller since there is no warning message or icon or anything. There is an exclamation mark over the wireless symbol though.

I do not have a wireless button on the laptop so i dont think that is the problem. I should have good signal. Is there a way to do some sort of diagnostic? I ran the 'System Testing' application and it found the wireless controller and said everything was ok. It says my controller is a:

Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g.

Any help would be apprecaited, i appologise if this is a stupid question, i have searched already but couldn't find anything.

Cheers,

Toby

[theotherotherguy]

I'm also looking for help on a broadcom 43xx card, if someone posts a fix to my thread I'll see if I can spread it over, I know there's a workthrough for my e1505 for older ubuntu versions using ndiswrapper on the forum, and I would guess that it would also work for you if you used the drivers from your specific hardware.

I'm jumping the gun asking for it, but would you post the output of

 lspci -nn

it might help diagnose the issue more specifically.

[Tobin-Tobin]

I would love to post the output of that command on here except that i cannot connect that laptop to the internet. I might be able to save it to a file and use a USB key to transfer it to this computer that is on the internet?

[Tobin-Tobin]

That was easier than i thought! Here it is:

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller [8086:2590] (rev 03)

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller [8086:2592] (rev 03)

00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller [8086:2792] (rev 03)

00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller [8086:2668] (rev 03)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:2660] (rev 03)

00:1c.3 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 4 [8086:2666] (rev 03)

00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 [8086:2658] (rev 03)

00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 [8086:2659] (rev 03)

00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 [8086:265a] (rev 03)

00:1d.3 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 [8086:265b] (rev 03)

00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:265c] (rev 03)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev d3)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:2641] (rev 03)

00:1f.1 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller [8086:266f] (rev 03)

02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX [14e4:170c] (rev 02)

02:03.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4318] (rev 02)

Thank you in advance for any help, if you do find a solution be sure to let me know.

Toby

[theotherotherguy]

My problems were resolved by this post in my thread

"To solve it I simply went to Synaptic Package Manager

Typed “broadcom”

Right clicked on “bcmwl-kernel-source” and marked it for re-installation

Then went back to the hardware drivers where I could now activate the broadcom driver without any problems!"

I did similar but in Kubuntu, I hope that this or something like it fixes things for you, I think this is a common issue

[spiky001]

Tobin I would get on net 1st Use a wired connection do updates and check for drivers (system admin hard ware drivers)

[Tobin-Tobin]

I have followed your suggestion but cannot find "bcmwl-kernel-source" only "bcmwl-modaliases". And i cannot mark it for reinstallation as the option is greyed out so i cannot click it.

Any more ideas would be much appreciated.

Toby

[SFCampbell]

It says my controller is a:
Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g.

Hey Toby, I've had problems with Broadcom wireless drivers before too. Please try this:

1) edit your modules list by typing sudo gedit /etc/modules
2) add "wl" (without quotations, just the letters W+L) to the bottom of the list
3) Save, close, reboot

This has repaid me with a list of wireless networks many times, I hope it does the same for you.

[Tobin-Tobin]

Hey Toby, I've had problems with Broadcom wireless drivers before too. Please try this:

1) edit your modules list by typing sudo gedit /etc/modules
2) add "wl" (without quotations, just the letters W+L) to the bottom of the list
3) Save, close, reboot

This has repaid me with a list of wireless networks many times, I hope it does the same for you.

I have done that succesfully. I will try it out in an hour or two when i return home. Fingers crossed!

Thanks for the help everyone,

Toby

[xifer]

Hey Toby, I've had problems with Broadcom wireless drivers before too. Please try this:

1) edit your modules list by typing sudo gedit /etc/modules
2) add "wl" (without quotations, just the letters W+L) to the bottom of the list
3) Save, close, reboot

This has repaid me with a list of wireless networks many times, I hope it does the same for you.

if that doesn't work then try to install it! But you'll need to get the package from that other site. Hopefully you won't need to anyway

sudo apt-get install dkms