rfkill hard block my wireless when I switch it off/on

[Soec]

Hi all,

First of all, I'm pretty new with Ubuntu, but before post it here I've searched in a lot of forums about my problem and I found some information, but in any case I could fix my laptop...

Second, sorry about my English...

Third, my system: My laptop is an ASUS X50R with an Atheros AR5001 wireless card. Running Ubuntu 11.04.

Fourth, my problem: Everything works ok when I launch my laptop normally. But if I switch off my wireless connection, I can't switch it on again because is hardware blocked by rfkill.

It doesn't matter the way of switching it off and on again:
- Function key + F2
- sudo ifconfig wlan0 down & sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
- switch it off in the network menu (after switch it off it says that it is switched off by a physical switch, but it is false because my laptop doesn't have any physical wireless switch. I think that it says this just because it's hardware blocked).

In these cases, before switch the wireless off everything is ok:

mypc:~$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

When I switch off the wireless I have different results: Using fn+F2 Software blocked = yes, in other ways it says no. Hard block is always off.

mypc:~$ rfkill list
 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
     Soft blocked: yes/no
     Hard blocked: no

But when I try to switch it on again my heart breaks when I read:

mypc:~$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: yes

That's my lshw -C network. Showing it disabled (because it's a hardware block? )

mypc:~$ sudo lshw -C network
  *-network DISABLED      
       description: Wireless interface
       product: AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter
       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 01
       serial: 00:15:af:2b:9f:33
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath5k  driverversion=2.6.38-8-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no  multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
       resources: irq:16 memory:fa9f0000-fa9fffff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: L2 Fast Ethernet
       vendor: Atheros Communications
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:06:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: a0
       serial: 00:1d:60:a4:0a:3c
       capacity: 100Mbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vpd bus_master cap_list rom  ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=atl2  driverversion=2.2.3 firmware=L2 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes  port=twisted pair
       resources: irq:40 memory:feac0000-feafffff memory:feaa0000-feabffff

I've tried different solutions but no one fix it:

1- sudo rfkill unblock all
2- rmmod ath5k && modprobe ath5k
3- rm /dev/rfkill
4- sudo iwconfig wlan0 txpower auto
5- Check BIOS: wireless is always on. I think that's why when I reboot my laptop it works properly until I try to switch it off/on the wireless again. It looks like if BIOS option were turned off when I switched it off in Ubuntu... I just try to guess, because I don't really know...

I can use my wireless normally if I don't change the configuration, but precisely I changed to ubuntu to play with the different configs...

Some ideas? Thank you.

[Soec]

One more thing, it's interesting that the wireless only work again if I shut down and start the laptop again. It doesn't happen with a reboot....

[TBABill]

What happens if it shows hard blocked and you switch it to the on position, then open a terminal and

sudo modprobe ath5k

and then wait about 1 minute?

[Soec]

What happens if it shows hard blocked and you switch it to the on position, then open a terminal and

sudo modprobe ath5k

and then wait about 1 minute?

Thank you for your reply, but anything happens... it is still hard blocked.

mipc:~$ rfkill list
**normal situation
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: yes

**DISABLE VIA FN+F2
mipc:~$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: yes
    Hard blocked: yes

**ENABLE VIA FN+F2
mipc:~$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: yes

mipc:~$ sudo modprobe ath5k
[sudo] password for mipc: 
mipc:~$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: yes

In fact, once I disable the wireless I can't enable it ON again, because it's hard blocked as I said. I've tried to switch it ON with Fn+F2 but it only changes the software block, not hardware.

If I try with:

mipc:~$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
[sudo] password for mipc: 
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not possible due to RF-kill

Sorry for my English, I don't know if it is correct, but when I say switch wireless ON/OFF, I mean enable/disable it with Fn+F2 or trying ifconfig wlan0 up. Because I don't have a Physical switch with ON/OFF position.

Thanks.

[Soec]

Sorry, I forgot to show the ERROR line in my dmesg:

[   89.388774] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

[TBABill]

Do you only have Ubuntu on the machine? I'm curious if the behavior is the same in Windows.

[simonenosco]

sudo -i
echo "options asus_nb_wmi wapf=4" > /etc/modprobe.d/asus.conf
exit