Fed Up!!! Wireless with Suse 10.3.
 

Ok right, after 3 days and god knows how many full re-installs, I still cannot find any possible way to get my wireless card working on my laptop.

It's listed on Suse 10.3 as a "Broadcom BCM94311" - and thats when it decides to list anything at all.

Kinda new to linux (well, nearly a year but never had to do anything as daft and difficult as this).

May just order a wireless USB stick instead... but, if I do, what ones would you guys recommend??? As no way can I go through all of this c**p again !

Cheers for any help,
matt.

If you have the hwinfo utility installed, from a console, run '/sbin/hwinfo --netcard'. That should identify the network card, tell you which driver is required, and whether or not the driver is active (bonus: also tells you the command to load the correct module).

Then run lsmod to see whether or not the module is loaded. If not, run the command from the output of hwinfo as directed above.

Then, if wireless is still not working, tell us what you have/have not done via Control Center - YaST - Network Devices to set up the wireless. It may help to read the SuSE System Administrator documentation in /usr/share/doc/manual.

A general rant about how long you've tried without success (at solving the problem) and having great success (at frustrating yourself) generally won't get solutions to problems. More definitive information is required.

Hi bigrigdriver,

Sorry about the rant, its just been a long time without anything positive.

I have the laptop right next to me now (using the desktop pc at the mo), and I am reinstalling Suse 10.3 on it so that I can start again from scratch.

I will try the commands you have mentioned as soon as it is ready and will get back to you. Hopefully figure something one step at a time.

Thanks.

Ok, the new install is complete (all fresh start!)

I tried the hwinfo command you said but it does nothing. Am I typing the command in wrong? According to Yast I have it installed. Not good at command prompts, unfortunately.

I did do lsmod tho and it reports the following:

______________________________________________________
Module Size Used by
i915 26624 1
drm 79636 2 i915
microcode 15372 0
rfcomm 43928 0
l2cap 30336 9 rfcomm
bluetooth 57172 4 rfcomm,l2cap
snd_pcm_oss 50432 0
snd_mixer_oss 20096 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq 54452 0
snd_seq_device 12172 1 snd_seq
snd_hda_intel 272796 1
snd_pcm 82564 2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel
snd_timer 26756 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 58164 9 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm,snd_timer
lp 14956 0
parport_pc 40764 0
parport 37832 2 lp,parport_pc
ip6t_LOG 10496 7
nf_conntrack_ipv6 22848 4
ip6t_REJECT 9216 3
xt_tcpudp 7168 4
xt_pkttype 5888 3
ipt_REJECT 8448 3
ipt_LOG 9984 8
xt_limit 6656 15
xt_state 6528 8
iptable_mangle 6784 0
iptable_nat 11140 0
nf_nat 21912 1 iptable_nat
ip6table_mangle 6656 0
nf_conntrack_ipv4 14856 6 iptable_nat
nf_conntrack 61684 5 nf_conntrack_ipv6,xt_state,iptable_nat,nf_nat,nf_conntrack_ipv4
nfnetlink 9752 4 nf_conntrack_ipv6,nf_nat,nf_conntrack_ipv4,nf_conntrack
ip6table_filter 6784 1
ip6_tables 17476 3 ip6t_LOG,ip6table_mangle,ip6table_filter
af_packet 29064 2
iptable_filter 6912 1
ip_tables 16324 3 iptable_mangle,iptable_nat,iptable_filter
x_tables 18308 11 ip6t_LOG,ip6t_REJECT,xt_tcpudp,xt_pkttype,ipt_REJECT,ipt_LOG,xt_limit,xt_state,iptable_nat,ip6_table s,ip_tables
st 40092 0
ide_disk 20480 0
ide_cd 40324 0
ide_core 122948 2 ide_disk,ide_cd
ipv6 268152 19 nf_conntrack_ipv6,ip6t_REJECT,ip6table_mangle
cpufreq_conservative 11272 0
cpufreq_userspace 8704 0
cpufreq_powersave 5888 0
acpi_cpufreq 13192 0
speedstep_lib 9220 0
apparmor 40736 0
loop 21636 0
dm_mod 56880 0
battery 14724 0
8139cp 26112 0
8139too 29184 0
bcm43xx 419548 0
i2c_i801 12560 0
soundcore 11460 1 snd
firmware_class 13568 2 microcode,bcm43xx
sr_mod 19492 1
ac 9604 0
rtc_cmos 12064 0
mii 9344 2 8139cp,8139too
iTCO_wdt 14372 0
ieee80211softmac 34432 1 bcm43xx
i2c_core 27520 1 i2c_i801
button 12432 0
intel_agp 27156 1
rtc_core 23048 1 rtc_cmos
rtc_lib 7040 1 rtc_core
snd_page_alloc 13960 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
iTCO_vendor_support 7812 1 iTCO_wdt
cdrom 37020 2 ide_cd,sr_mod
joydev 13632 0
agpgart 35764 3 drm,intel_agp
ieee80211 35400 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
ieee80211_crypt 9728 1 ieee80211
sg 37036 0
sd_mod 31104 4
uhci_hcd 27024 0
ehci_hcd 34956 0
usbcore 123372 3 uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd
edd 12996 0
ext3 131848 2
mbcache 12292 1 ext3
jbd 68148 1 ext3
fan 9220 0
ata_piix 21380 1
ahci 29188 3
libata 136776 2 ata_piix,ahci
scsi_mod 140376 5 st,sr_mod,sg,sd_mod,libata
thermal 19848 0
processor 40744 2 acpi_cpufreq,thermal
_________________________________________________________

What should I do now?

You are going to have to install ndiswrapper for your wireless card to work.
Have a look at this thread:

http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/in...howtopic=61715

Once ndiswrapper is installed and you have loaded the appropriate drivers
then your wireless card will be listed under wlan0 or other designation.

After you have loaded ndiswrapper post the output of (as root)

iwconfig

ifconfig

Hi Hal8000b,

Yes I have a guide up now about ndiswrapper (been through a thousand of them tho lol!)...

I have just worked out the hwinfo command and it sends me this back:

16: PCI 600.0: 0282 WLAN controller
[Created at pci.301]
UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_14e4_4311
Unique ID: rBUF.eFWO33Uywa9
Parent ID: hoOk.6RaQ2iO1oj0
SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.2/0000:06:00.0
SysFS BusID: 0000:06:00.0
Hardware Class: network
Model: "Hewlett-Packard Company BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI"
Vendor: pci 0x14e4 "Broadcom"
Device: pci 0x4311 "BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI"
SubVendor: pci 0x103c "Hewlett-Packard Company"
SubDevice: pci 0x1364
Revision: 0x01
Driver: "bcm43xx"
Driver Modules: "bcm43xx"
Device File: eth0
Features: WLAN
Memory Range: 0x50000000-0x50003fff (rw,non-prefetchable)
IRQ: 17 (no events)
HW Address: 00:1a:73:66:fa:a1
Link detected: no
WLAN channels: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
WLAN frequencies: 2.412 2.417 2.422 2.427 2.432 2.437 2.442 2.447 2.452 2.457 2.462 2.467 2.472
WLAN bitrates: 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54 1 2 5.5 11
WLAN encryption modes: WEP40 WEP104 TKIP CCMP
WLAN authentication modes: open sharedkey wpa-psk wpa-eap
Module Alias: "pci:v000014E4d00004311sv0000103Csd00001364bc02sc80i00"
Driver Info #0:
Driver Status: bcm43xx is active
Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe bcm43xx"
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
Attached to: #6 (PCI bridge)
______________________________________

I am not sure if this information is required, but the driver available from the HP website is only a Vista exe file... they don't have it listed under XP. I deleted Vista as soon as this arrived. It is a HP Pavillion G5056EA.

The blue network light has come on before when I did some firmware thing (sorry, but I can not remember which guide it was). However, it did find the wireless, but when it came to connect it tried to "configure" itself and got as far as 28%. On a reboot, everything had vanished.

I appreciate all your help, thanks.