All,

I have a Dell Vostro 1500 laptop with a bcm4310 wireless card. I'm running Fedora 9. I've been really struggling with getting this card working. From all of the research I've been doing on various linux sites, it appears that I have to use the ndiswrapper to get this working.

As far as I can tell, ndiswrapper is working and finding the card. I can also use the iwlist wlan0 scanning command to see available wireless networks. However when I try to use the iwconfig command to actually set the card to an ESSID, the command appears to work but I am not connected to the ESSID.

I did setup the wlan0 interface in my Network Configuration Manager and set the wireless settings with my network key but I don't see a way in the Network Configuration Manager to use WPA-Personal which is what my wireless router is set to use.

When I boot the laptop into Windows XP, the card works just fine so I know that the card works.

I'm going to include some output of a terminal session showing that ndiswrapper can find the card, that iwlist can see wireless networks.

I'd appreciate any suggestions. I seem to be so close but still....nothing.

Thanks in advance

John S.


Here is terminal output:
[root@localhost ~]# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1D:09C:84:75
inet addr:192.168.1.102 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::21d:9ff:fedc:8475/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:11589 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:7901 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:17530556 (16.7 MiB) TX bytes:587198 (573.4 KiB)
Interrupt:17

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:3200 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3200 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:160160 (156.4 KiB) TX bytes:160160 (156.4 KiB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:16:44:C9:A3:01
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:17 Memory:fe8fc000-fe900000

[root@localhost ~]#
[root@localhost ~]# ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl5 : driver installed
device (14E4:4315) present
[root@localhost ~]#
[root@localhost ~]#
[root@localhost ~]#
[root@localhost ~]# iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:18:39:EB:CE:15
ESSID:"MeadowLarkCottage"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:6/100 Signal level:-92 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
Cell 02 - Address: 00:09:5B:AF:48:1C
ESSID:"Shangri-La"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:15/100 Signal level:-86 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Encryption keyn
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0
Cell 03 - Address: 00:18:39:FC:33:B3
ESSID:"Pluto"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality:60/100 Signal level:-57 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 : CCMP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
Cell 04 - Address: 00:1E:58:06:57:9F
ESSID:"Gist Router"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality:14/100 Signal level:-87 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
E[john@localhost ~]$
[john@localhost ~]$

i use that card in opensuse without any problem, no ndiswrapper, just put the firmware into /lib/firmware and that's it.

I had a lot of trouble getting my BCM4318 working too. I found a post here on LQ specifically for the 4318, but might work for you too. It is here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hlight=bcm4318

I have OpenSUSE 10.3 and the first time I installed it, I could not get it to work with Knetworkmanager (KDE), so I had to use some other wifi network manager (I can't remember what it was called). Later because of some problems that I had, I reinstalled my OS, and then it would only work with Knetworkmanager. I don't know what makes the difference. I don't think I did anything different. If you cannot get it to work with one network manager, try some other one.

Hope this helps you out.

M.A.M.

I have similar Broadcom Card working, check out the b43 driver, the setup is very easy, check out this short description how to get the firmware, after you got this the Card should work fine.

http://forums.linksys.com/linksys/bo...hread.id=15114