10.04 - Kernel update kills wireless

[QwUo173Hy]

Ubuntu 10.04 has been working great on my mothers laptop (Dell Studio 1750) for ages. A few days ago she called and says she can't get online and that the wireless icon has a red exclamation mark through it.

I've got her laptop with me now and see that grub is booting into kernel 2.6.32-42. I reboot with
2.6.32-41 and the problem goes away. Boot back to -42 and no wireless. She said there was an update recently.

She has a Broadcom BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01) and it took a lot of work to get it recognized on 10.04.

My questions are: Should I lock the kernel version in Synaptic Package Manager? And should I file a bug?

Many thanks,
TenLeftFingers

[chili555]

Please open a terminal and do:

sudo modprobe b43

Does the wireless spring to life? If so, please do:

sudo su
echo b43 >> /etc/modules
exit

You and Mom should be all set.

If that is not the answer, please post:

lspci -nn | grep 0280
rfkill list all
dmesg | grep -e b43 -e wl

Thanks.

[mjlcapdagde]

Hi,

I have exactly this problem - which has been a consistent and very annoying feature of every kernel update I have received using Ubuntu 10.04.

However I used to fix it by reinstalling my own wireless driver, a Ralink not a Broadcom: rt2860sta.

The steps I always used for this procedure are no longer successful following the recent kernel update from 2.6.32-41 to 2.6.32-42.

Like TenLeftFingers, I can make the wireless card 'reanimate' by booting into kernel 2.6.32-41. But that is hardly a good solution.

For me the results of

sudo modprobe rt2860sta

are nothing whatever. I am just returned to a prompt in terminal and wireless remains dead.

For me the output from your next test are as follows:

mjl@mjl-minastirith:~$ sudo modprobe rt2860sta
mjl@mjl-minastirith:~$ lspci -nn | grep 0280
05:01.0 Network controller [0280]: RaLink Device [1814:3060]
mjl@mjl-minastirith:~$ rfkill list all
mjl@mjl-minastirith:~$ mjl@mjl-minastirith:~$ dmesg | grep -e rt2860sta -e wl
mjl@mjl-minastirith:~$

I would appreciate any further help or advice you can give.

Regards

MJL.

[chili555]

This device is no longer covered as of kernel version 2.6.32-42. The alternatives are to compile a driver from source code, which would have to be repeated with all future kernels, or else, take advantage of the progress in driver development over the last 2 1/2 years and upgrade to 12.04 where it's covered out of the box by rt2800pci.

Whichever route you select, we'll be happy to assist.