ndiswrapper + bcmwl5, no scan results from "hidden" networks

enigma_0Z · 10-05-2006, 10:40 PM

Hi everyone,

I've got an HP dv6000z laptop, and I love almost everything about it...

That said, it has an ugly broadcom card, so ndiswrapper is my only solution for now (the bcm43xx module does not work.)

The driver works for my home network, but I am broadcasting my SSID, and it is an ad-hoc network. My school netowork, however, is a hidden-ssid network, and scan results return nothing--from linux. I've got a dual-boot system, and the driver works beautifully in windows (eww!). iwlist scan also seems to take a long time for getting no results...

Anyways, I did manage to pick up the network once, but I don't think there was anything special that I did that one time.

Various infos for reference:

ndiswrapper ver. 1.25
ubuntu dapper 2.6.15-27-386
HP dv6000z, pci express
AMD Sempron

lspci:

Code:

0000:03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation: Unknown device 4311 (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 1363
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
        Memory at c0400000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [d0] #10 [0011]

iwconfig:

Code:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power:32 dBm
          RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:100/100  Signal level:-51 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

ifconfig:

Code:

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
          inet addr:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx  Bcast:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx  Mask:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
          inet6 addr: fe80::214:a5ff:feeb:8d36/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1479 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1301 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1042608 (1018.1 KiB)  TX bytes:263444 (257.2 KiB)
          Interrupt:11 Memory:c0400000-c0404000

ahedler · 10-05-2006, 11:40 PM

I'm running OpenSuSE 10.0 on an Acer Aspire with Broadcom 4318 wireless G, have my wireless router not broadcasting SSID, managed, and have WPA turned on. You will need to find out if the school has WEP or WPA turned on. If WPA, you will need to use wpa_supplicant to get it working.

I am also using ndiswrapper, had to use the bcmwl5a driver from XP instead of the bcmwl5, wouldn't work otherwise.

I started initially using Knoppix, had SSID broadcast on, no encryption, used ndiswrapper. Once that was working, then turned off SSID, next using WEP, then WPA finally. Didn't actually load SuSE until after that as I didn't want to make the leap on the laptop unless I could get the wireless working.

If you don't have other wireless devices at home that expect ad-hoc and SSID on, try setting it up at home, first as managed, then w/o SSID, then encrypted. I suspect that ad-hoc might be hindering things, but I'm no expert. I think you should be able to have multiple configurations, but I haven't tried it yet.

I apologize for not having more detail, but hope this helps some.

enigma_0Z · 10-06-2006, 12:02 AM

The wireless card works with broadcasting ap's and in ad-hoc mode, but scan resluts don't report any <hidden ssid> ap's if they aren't there...

I know how to set up WPA, but for some reason, I can't pick up the beacons from the school network. I did it once, but now when wpa_supplicant runs, it gets no scan results. No hidden SSID's, no anything!

I'm gonna try linuxant and see how that turns out.