Netgear WNA3100 issues

[mathsgeek]

Hi, I'm having issues getting my Netgear WNA3100 to connect to the web. I have tried every method described on these forums and none work. Can anyone help troubleshoot my problems? I'm running 12.04 64 bit. When I run lsusb I get (only listing relevant entries):

...
Bus 001 Device 003 : ID 0846:9020 Netgear, Inc. WNA3100(v1) Wireless-N 300 [Broadcom BCM43231

...

And iwconfig gives:

lo   no wireless extensions

etho     no wireless extensions

I am getting access to the internet via my laptop and another wireless stick (which cannot be permanent).

Any help will be much appreciated.

[chili555]

Did you try the driver files attached? Please let me know if you need assistance removing the defective files and installing these.

[mathsgeek]

Yeah, I've tried your drivers chili555, the stick still doesn't work. I followed the instruction for those drivers that were on the last page of the thread you posted them on: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1946875 and the ubuntu wiki page on getting ndiswrapper to work. If you can help I would be most grateful.

[chili555]

Would you please round up the usual suspects?

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper -l
dmesg | grep ndis

Thanks.

[hopeless8009]

im am also having problems with same set up only I'm running 32bit. the Netgear card and 12.04 LTS are the same

[chili555]

im am also having problems with same set up only I'm running 32bit. the Netgear card and 12.04 LTS are the same

Please see post #4.

[mathsgeek]

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper returns (My brother is a relatively good with ubuntu and was playing with the blacklist):

WARNING: All config files need .conf : /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, it will be ignored in a future release.

ndiswrapper -l gives:

WARNING: All config files need .conf : /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, it will be ignored in a future release.
bcmwlhigh5 : driver installed
     device (0846:9020) present

dmesg | grep ndis outputs

[     9.436697] ndiswrapper version 1.57 loaded (smp=yes) (preempt=no)
[    11.105885] ndiswrapper (check_nt_hdr:141): kernel is 64 bit, but Windows driver is not 64 bit;bad magic: 010B
[    11.105889] ndiswrapper (load_sys_files:199): couldn't load driver 'bcmwlhigh5'
[    11.105960] ndiswrapper (load_wrap_driver:121): couldn't load driver 'bcmwlhigh5'
[    11.106027] usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper

Does this help?

Would I be right in thinking it isn't working because your drivers are not 64bit?

[chili555]

Would I be right in thinking it isn't working because your drivers are not 64bit?

Sort of. Here is a snip from the .inf file:

;-----------------------------------------------------------------
; x64 (AMD64, Intel EM64T) - WinXP
;
[BROADCOM.NTamd64]
%BCM430ND_DeviceDesc% = BCM43XNMD, USB\VID_0846&PID_9020

As you can see, it references your device and clearly is a 64-bit .inf file. I suspect what happened is that the 32-bit .cat file is in the same folder as the .inf. I think ndiswrapper grabbed it instead of the 64-bit .cat file. Let's see if we can fix it. Go to the folder you extracted and look for and delete bcmh43xx.cat leaving only bcmh43xx64.cat. Now we erase the old install:

sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwlhigh5

And let's do some housekeeping:

sudo rm -rf /etc/ndiswrapper/*

Now, let's clean this up:

WARNING: All config files need .conf : /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, it will be ignored in a future release.

Let's see what your brother blacklisted:

cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Whatever is in there is either not needed, in which case we can delete the file altogether; or it should be added to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf, a file that already exists on your system. Then the blacklist (not conf) can be deleted. If you are in doubt, post the result here.

Now let's try again:

cd Desktop/wna3100-drivers  <--or wherever you extracted them
sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper
sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmlhigh5.inf
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
dmesg | grep ndis

Now at a later timestamp than here: [ 11.105960] ndiswrapper (load_wrap_driver:121): couldn't load driver 'bcmwlhigh5', did we get rid of the bad magic?

[mathsgeek]

catting the blacklist gives:

blacklist bcm43xx
blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist ssb

Unfortunately we haven't got rid of the bad magic...

[chili555]

None of those blacklists add or detract from your case. I suggest you remove the file altogether:

sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Please delete the bcmwlhigh5 as above and try these files. You will be installing bcmn43xx64.inf.

As you have seen, this device on 64-bit is quite tricky.