wireless hell(p)? Acer Aspire 3002LCi with Broadcom BCM94318 MPG

lefty.crupps · 07-31-2005, 01:32 PM

I've been trying to get this internal wireless going for a few weeks now. Not having much luck!

This is a new Acer Aspire with an AMD Sempron 3000+ processor and an internal PCI wireless card (Broadcom BCM94318 MPG). I found windows drivers here and I've tried running ndiswrapper (actually that seems to be what got the eth0 wired port working, not sure why....)

ndiswrappers starts on bootup with MEPIS, so no need to run it every time (I believe). This computer has a button to start the card under Windoze, which lights up when its being used, but the button seems useless in Linux.

Since every post out there seems to want lspci, iwlist, and ndiswrappers -l i posted them below. Any ideas?

Code:

root@4[laptop]# lspci
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 760/M760 Host (rev 03)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SG86C202
0000:00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS963 [MuTIOL Media IO] (rev 25)
0000:00:02.1 SMBus: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0016
0000:00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE]
0000:00:02.6 Modem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Modem Controller (rev a0)
0000:00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Sound Controller (rev a0)
0000:00:03.0 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
0000:00:03.1 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
0000:00:03.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller
0000:00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 91)
0000:00:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 02)
0000:00:0b.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation: Unknown device 4318 (rev02)
0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661FX/M661FX/M661MX/741/M741/760/M760 PCI/AGP

Code:

root@4[laptop]# iwlist
Usage: iwlist [interface] scanning
              [interface] frequency
              [interface] channel
              [interface] bitrate
              [interface] rate
              [interface] encryption
              [interface] key
              [interface] power
              [interface] txpower
              [interface] retry
              [interface] ap
              [interface] accesspoints
              [interface] peers
              [interface] event

Code:

root@4[laptop]# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
airplus driver present
bcmwl5  driver present
lsbcmnds        driver present
lstinds driver present
mrv8k51 driver present
netr33x driver present
prismnic        driver present
w29n51  driver present
wlanuig driver present
wlipnds driver present

anyone have some ideas for me to try out?

Thnaks everyone!

65_289 · 07-31-2005, 01:51 PM

I could be mistaken, but it looks like ndiswrapper cannot find your hardware. My output:

$ ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
2802w driver present
bcmwl5a driver present, hardware present

I didn't see "hardware present" in your output...

lefty.crupps · 07-31-2005, 01:52 PM

yeah i noticed that too; how might i go about making that happen!?

65_289 · 07-31-2005, 02:20 PM

That's really weird. We have the exact same card (4318 rev 02).

Have you tried removing all the drivers using ndiswrapper -e <driver name> and then adding it via ndiswrapper -i /path/to/bcmwl5a.inf

I am running Kanotix, which came with a script for configuring ndiswrapper. I just ran the script and pointed it to the driver inf file. Gotta make sure the .sys file is there too.

lefty.crupps · 07-31-2005, 02:30 PM

where do i put the .sys file? just have it available in the same path?

I tried to uninstall and reinstall it. Is this good!?

Code:

root@2[laptop]# ndiswrapper -i /home/laptop/BCMwifi/bcmwl5.inf
Installing bcmwl5
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2

can you post that script? it sounds real purdy.

lefty.crupps · 07-31-2005, 02:32 PM

ok so the hardware is now present!! woohoo!

Code:

root@2[laptop]# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
airplus driver present
bcmwl5  driver present, hardware present
lsbcmnds        driver present
lstinds driver present
mrv8k51 driver present
netr33x driver present
prismnic        driver present
w29n51  driver present
wlanuig driver present
wlipnds driver present

what are the rest of those drivers? can i safely remove them?

now how might i go about getting the wifi to work? kwifimanager doesn't see the card yet.

lefty.crupps · 07-31-2005, 02:56 PM

ok so after a reboot, kwifi found wlan0. Life looks good, maybe?

i have a strong connection to a local network names "linksys" (slight issue here- no wifi router of my own to test against!) but not sure if its encripted or not. I cannot load a web page yet, though.

Code:

laptop@2[~]$ netstat -rn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
192.168.1.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 eth0
192.168.1.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 wlan0

Code:

laptop@2[~]$ ifconfig wlan0
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0E:9B:B6:12:D0
          inet addr:192.168.1.128  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::20e:9bff:feb6:12d0/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:109 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:10416 (10.1 KiB)  TX bytes:20040 (19.5 KiB)
          Memory:e2000000-e2001fff

is there more to be done? or do i just need to find an open network?

Thanks again for all of the help, I am so close and wouldn't be without these forums!

65_289 · 07-31-2005, 03:37 PM

Looking good. I say go to the local Starbucks or Barnes and Nobles and see what's up!

phillfri · 08-11-2005, 12:51 PM

Maybe you guys can help me? I just purchased an Aspire 3003LCI and need to install the windows wireless driver. What driver files from windows did you use? When I do a search on BCM*.* I get several versions of .inf and .sys files. I haven't a clue which one is the right one to utilize.

konfusionrave · 08-23-2005, 02:07 PM

Hey there

I have an Acer 3002
the driver file I had to point at is bcmwl5.inf

Hope it helps

skirkpatrick · 08-27-2005, 11:56 PM

I just bought an Acer 3003LXCI and am having a hell of a time with the wireless. I've used ndiswrapper on my HP laptop before so I at least know the process. I found the Acer's Broadcom drivers on the Windows XP install. I've installed ndiswrappers, installed the drivers, modprobed, rebooted and now I have problems.

dmesg:

Quote:

ndiswrapper version 1.0rc2 loaded (preempt=yes,smp=no)
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:0b.0[A] -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
ndiswrapper: using irq 17
wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:14:a4:14:3e:23 using driver bcmwl5
wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP, WPA with TKIP, WPA with AES/CCMP
ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,12/22/2004, 3.100.46.0) added

iwconfig:

Quote:

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID

ff/any
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Power Management

ff
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-10 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:

Quote:

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:A4:14:3E:23
inet6 addr: fe80::214:a4ff:fe14:3e23/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING 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:e2000000-e2001fff

"iwlist wlan0 scanning" tells me that there are no scan results and the front wireless light won't come on. I've setup ESSID and WEP key the same as I did in Windows on this laptop.

Can somebody please give me some direction on where to look?

skirkpatrick · 09-01-2005, 07:05 PM

It appears that the radio is not being turned on. Anybody got any thoughts.

bdogg64 · 10-28-2005, 11:25 AM

Did you get your wireless working? I just purchased an Acer Aspire 3003LCI and I installed Ubuntu Linux on it and i was able to get the Broadcom 4318 wireless card working with WEP and WPA. I'm new to linux, so naturally I was very happy to get it working. I'll give you the details of how I did if you still need them.

skirkpatrick · 10-28-2005, 12:47 PM

I got mine working, in fact I've been helping others in the Ubuntu forums to get theirs working but thanks for the offer

inz · 10-28-2005, 04:57 PM

Hi bdogg64!

Its seems that the Gods smile against you

Well i also have a problem with The Built-in Broadcom in a Acer Aspire 3003LMi.

Okey, Ive done every step with ndiswrapper.

1. installed the driver with .inf files from XP
2. modprobed it
3. Ive set the encryption key to my router.
4. Ive scanned for my wifi network and found it!
5. i have put the wlan0 up with 'ifconfig wlan0 up'

im doing a ifconfig and wlan0 is there.

But when I try to get an ip from the network with 'dhcpcd wlan0' it fails (and it takes a while).
When its done, ifconfig doesnt show the wlan0 anymore. it sounds really strange since i CAN find the ESSID on my network..
it seems that im so close, but i dont know what im doing wrong..

please help.