HOWTO: Dell Inspiron E1505 Wireless (Broadcom 1390 WLAN)

[paperdiesel]

0b:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Unknown device 4328 (rev 01)

This how-to is for 4311 cards, not 4328. The same method will PROBABLY work, but I can't be sure. You should go to dell.com and use the drivers that correspond to the wireless card for your specific laptop.

the file var/sys/log is very long....do u want me to copy paste whole list???

No, just the rows that refer to wireless.

[adult swim]

does anyone know why after i put this in the terminal
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
wget http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R151517.EXE

it aborts at the end?

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
dpkg-dev g++ g++-4.1 libc6-dev libstdc++6-4.1-dev linux-libc-dev
Suggested packages:
debian-keyring gcc-4.1-doc lib64stdc++6 glibc-doc manpages-dev
libstdc++6-4.1-doc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
build-essential dpkg-dev g++ g++-4.1 libc6-dev libstdc++6-4.1-dev
linux-libc-dev
0 upgraded, 7 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 8050kB of archives.
After unpacking 33.7MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
Abort.
aaron@ubuntu:~$

[paperdiesel]

does anyone know why after i put this in the terminal
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
wget http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R151517.EXE

it aborts at the end?

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
dpkg-dev g++ g++-4.1 libc6-dev libstdc++6-4.1-dev linux-libc-dev
Suggested packages:
debian-keyring gcc-4.1-doc lib64stdc++6 glibc-doc manpages-dev
libstdc++6-4.1-doc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
build-essential dpkg-dev g++ g++-4.1 libc6-dev libstdc++6-4.1-dev
linux-libc-dev
0 upgraded, 7 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 8050kB of archives.
After unpacking 33.7MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
Abort.
aaron@ubuntu:~$

Did you try just doing one command at a time?

[flyingsolo]

I've tried before unsuccessfully but trying again since so many others have posted about their success.

Model: Dell inspiron 6400
wireless: Dell Wireless 1500 draft 802.11n
ndiswrapper 1.43
Feisty
lspci:?
0b:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Unknown device 4328 (rev 01)
dmesg:
[ 25.408000] ndiswrapper version 1.38 loaded (preempt=no,smp=yes)
[ 25.464000] ndiswrapper (load_wrap_driver:118): couldn't load driver bcmwl5; check system log for messages from 'loadndisdriver'
[ 25.468000] usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper

/var/log/syslog:
May 4 14:21:13 michael-laptop NetworkManager: <information>^IUpdating allowed wireless network lists.
May 4 14:21:13 michael-laptop NetworkManager: <WARNING>^I nm_dbus_get_networks_cb (): error received: org.freedesktop.NetworkManagerInfo.NoNetworks - There are no wireless networks stored..

I realize my dmesg says I still have version 1.38 installed from an earlier try at this but shouldn't it have been taken out with the multiple repeats in Step 3 of sudo make uninstall? I got to a point of no replies to that command
When I get to sudo ndiswrapper -l, I get: bcmwl5 invalid driver!
Just to clarify--the driver name is bcmwl5, as in the letter "ell" & not the number one after bcmw, correct? (they look so similar)

[dislocated]

I've been having one hell of a time getting wireless up and running but this seemed to do the trick:

Instead of cleaning things up with this:

sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-utils

I used this instead:

sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5
sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-utils

That puts me one step closer to cleaning Window$ off my hard drive for good!

Hope this helps people having trouble like I was.

[ijn]

finally i've got my wireless card working. dell wireless 1500 draft 802.11n wtih ndiswrapper version 1.41 and dell driver R151517. im on dell inspiron 6400/1505. now don't have time but the days to come I'll post my experience in this forum. mainly it is the way that paperdiesel do it. so dell owners, follow his guide.

[milanmm]

I have followed the intructions and it worked perfectly!
But I have a small problem.

If I want to change the network I am connected to, I change it in the Network Manager,
it says it changed the configuration, but I can connect only if I restart the computer
or if I run

ifdown eth1; ifup eth1

as a root (so I restart the card I believe).

Does anybody have a solution to this problem?

Thank you

[Teeroy78]

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to give a HUGE thank you for this howto!!! I used the howto exactly as it appears in the first post of this thread, and it worked flawlessly! Thank you!!! =D>

For everyone's reference, my laptop is a Dell Latitude D620, obviously with the evil Broadcom wireless NIC.
-Troy

[Teeroy78]

Oh, and I forgot to mention that this was done on a clean Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn install.
-Troy

[asteffens]

Question -
I have a Dell 6400 running Ubuntu 7.0.4 and I went through the instructions on getting the wireless Dell 1390 updated and running...seems to be working just fine...but I cannot connect to my WPA encrypted wireless. It picks up the SSID but only shows WEP options for logging...any ideas? I assume I need to apply some type of update? Thanks for the help.

asteffens@NINTENDO:~/DRIVER$ sudo iwlist scanning
lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth1 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:0C:41:CC:37:F7
ESSID:"hrgross"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.442 GHz (Channel 7)
Quality:18/100 Signal level:-84 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Encryption keyff
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0
Cell 02 - Address: 00:18:4D:56:89:02
ESSID:"VOLCANO"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:75/100 Signal level:-48 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Encryption keyn
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK

asteffens@NINTENDO:~/DRIVER$