NetworkManager/knetworkmanager doesn't see wireless networks with bcm43xx driver

ubunteen · 10-29-2006, 02:14 PM

Hello, all. I'll say first that I've had way too much trouble trying to use the bcm4318 built in to my Compaq Presario V2000. However, I see that others have as well, so I assume that once the smoke clears and someone has a fool-proof process of making it work that the bcm4318 will be a very well supported card.

Now, onto my dilemma. I've got NetworkManager and knetworkmanager installed on my newly updated Ubuntu Edgy Eft system. I'm assuming that my card is using the bcm43xx driver because it "worked" out of the box. At first, when I realized my that knetworkmanager wasn't showing me any networks, I thought it might be the firmware, so I used bcm43xx-fwcutter to cut my firmware to /lib/firmware. However, I still can't see any networks. When I click "Connect to another network..." and type in all the credentials, the connection still fails. My wired network is fine.

I don't know how to tell exactly what driver I am using. Help with that would also be appreciated. Please ask for any other info, because I'd be happy to give it. This needs to be fixed.

Hangdog42 · 10-29-2006, 05:37 PM

Welcome to LQ!

Quote:

so I assume that once the smoke clears and someone has a fool-proof process of making it work that the bcm4318 will be a very well supported card.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Broadcom is particularly stubborn about refusing to support Linux, so we're stuck with ndiswrapper and the reverse-engineered bcm43xx.

Quote:

I don't know how to tell exactly what driver I am using.

Probably the easiest way to tell is to pop open a console and run lsmod. You'll probably see bcm43xx in the listing. You also probably want to have a look at your log files (/var/log/syslog, /var/log/messages, and dmesg) and see if bcm43xx is loading, or if there are other indications about what may be going wrong.

Now with all that said, I'm actually going to suggest you have a look at ndiswrapper. The 4318 chipset doesn't work particularly well with bcm43xx, and that may be part of the problem here. If you do go the ndiswrapper route, but sure to blacklist bcm43xx. If you have both modules loaded at the same time, there will be trouble.

ubunteen · 10-29-2006, 08:37 PM

Hey thanks for the information. I used a nice little tutorial I found online and switched to ndiswrapper. However, I still cannot see any networks. I'm sitting right next to my router. I had to fix a bug that edgy causes because the default version of ndiswrapper is 1.1 and i had to switch to 1.8. But now the module loads in modprobe. I think I'll try a restart and see what happens. Hypothetically, if it doesn't work, what should I do?

Hangdog42 · 10-30-2006, 07:35 AM

Quote:

Hypothetically, if it doesn't work, what should I do?

You'll have to post details about what is going on when you try stuff. There are a number of possibilities and "I still cannot see any networks" really doesn't give us anything to go on. We need details about how you set the card up and what happens when you try to use it. Error messages can be particularly useful. I would also try to do things from a console rather than a GUI tool. Most GUI tools hide the errors you need to see in order to figure out what is actually going on.

ubunteen · 10-30-2006, 06:59 PM

Ha! Got it working. It really was a stupid fix. I needed to press the laptop button for my wireless card. That has never worked for me before, but it was my problem. Thanks for the help.

dragonlor20 · 11-17-2006, 09:13 PM

Hey, I have a Compaq V2000 laptop with the same card and all of that too... I haven't yet been able to make the wireless card work in Edgy and I really want to because it runs so much faster and my touchpad doesn't have so many quirks...

Could you maybe post up a step-by-step as to how to make a Turion 64 laptop using Edgy 64 work for wireless with the bcm4318 card?