Wireless card not detected on Dell Latitude D420, Arch linux
 

I am running the latest version of arch linux on a Dell Latitude D420. So far everything has worked perfectly except the wireless. It seems that Arch does not even detect the wireless because ifconfig -a only gives me the loopback and eth0. I installed ndiswrapper as well as the drivers. lsmod | grep ndiswrapper shows that ndiswrapper is being loaded on boot. I tried to install the iwp3945 drivers, but they have become obsolete so pacman was unable to find them. I also tried installing the iwl3945 drivers as explained here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...iwl5000-series but still no luck.
I am quite stumped and any help would be apreciated.
Thanks,
deadalus

ndiswrapper is for if you must use Windows drivers. Generally, if you can get a working native Linux driver that's better.

Are you sure the drivers you have installed are the correct ones? http://www.linlap.com/wiki/dell+latitude+d420 mentions some Latitude D420s use a different wireless chip. The lspci command should tell you what wireless chip you have.

If you have the right driver, maybe you need firmware, I'm not sure.

Thanks for the reply. Here is the output of lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
02:01.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b4)
02:01.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C552 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 09)
02:01.2 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 18)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5752 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)

I may be missing something, but I don't see anything that has to do with wireless. Am I missing something?

The wireless card is turned on. WiFi Locator - Wireless On/Off switch to enable it. Sometimes the obvious is overlooked.

:D yes I checked that. I tried installing the drivers both with it on and off. But thanks for mentioning it because I have been known to forget to plug it in, attach a cord, flip a switch, etc.

May be your wireless-card is internally attached to USB. In this case, the output of lsusb would help.

I thought about that to, but hopefully I am just overlooking something. Here is lsusb:

Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0b97:7762 O2 Micro, Inc. Oz776 SmartCard Reader
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0b97:7761 O2 Micro, Inc. Oz776 1.1 Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 413c:a005 Dell Computer Corp. Internal 2.0 Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 413c:9001 Dell Computer Corp.
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 413c:a005 Dell Computer Corp. Internal 2.0 Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Thanks for the replies so far.

Maybe the card needs to be reseated. Does it work in windows or different distro.

Yes, it worked in windows. I just wiped the HDD and installed Arch linux.

lspcmcia ? bit of a long shot I'll admit

Here is the output of lspcmia:

Socket 0 Bridge: [yenta_cardbus] (bus ID: 0000:02:01.0)

I am wondering if I need some special firmware or something. :(

if your card works on windows you can try if it works with pinguy live. I has most drivers on it.

3 ways to install wifi on linux

Another long shot. What is the output of lsmod. Maybe two conflicting modules or the wrong module is trying to take over the card.

Please post your /var/log/messages file here, but please, put it between code-tags.

lsmod

And for the second one. There is a whole ton of stuff. You want the whole thing? or do you have a grep I can add to the end.

May be a grep with net would be sufficient, but I am not sure about that.

Well here is the output of cat /var/log/messages.log | grep net

See my post below with the pastebin link.

See my post below with the pastbin link

Ok this is stupid. Instead of pasting all 2831 lines in like 10 posts( I cant use more than 30000 characters per post), here is a pastebin link. :)
http://pastebin.com/pMaHV6Nt

The last 400 lines were only the information of the system going to sleep and wake up several times.
I have looked through your log, and it is the same as with your lspci and lsusb output: If I wouldn't know better, I would say there is no wireless adapter present in your system. I don't know why Linux doesn't find it, so I can't help here anymore, sorry.

Well Sir, I apreciate your time. Perhaps I will have to go with a pcmia card, or usb device. :(

Well I am using a pci card (D-link AirPlus), and it is working fine except that when I come out of sleep mode it quits. No sign of it when I use
The only way to get it to work again is to rip out the card and stick it back into the computer (which realy seems like a bad idea to me). After that, it works great.
Any sugestions would be great.

Edit: I am starting a new thread for this, and if you have an answer you can find it here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...79#post4240979

Update: I left the computer alone for awhile and then came back to it later. I was messing around and found that the wireless option was turned off in the bios :( . MINOR PROBLEM!
So now my
shows
sugestions?