Acer 5930G, RF-kill switch doesn't work

haakond89 · 10-13-2008, 12:49 PM

Ok, so i thought i should have a go at installing the Mandriva 09, at my laptop(can't live with W Vista anymore!).

Everyting seems to work just fine, and with the new kernel my wifi-card(Intel Wifi 5100) is also recognised properly. The only problem is that i cant get it to pick up any networks because the RF-Kill switch doesn't work.
I have tried the trick with holding the "Fn" key down while pushing the switch, but it doesn't seem to work. Anybody got an idea how til fix this?

So far, i've just tried booting it of the cd, to ensure that everyting works before i do a OS reinstall, but if necessary i will offcourse install it.

Unknown_User · 10-13-2008, 02:18 PM

Did you find the post at http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...pw2200-592920/ ?

Quote:

Try set rf_kill to 0

...I read the sourceforge.net/README.ipw2200 and under: 1.4.2 Device Level Sysfs Helper Files I found something about the rf switch.:

rf_kill
read -
0 = RF kill not enabled (radio on)
1 = SW based RF kill active (radio off)
2 = HW based RF kill active (radio off)
3 = Both HW and SW RF kill active (radio off)
write -
0 = If SW based RF kill active, turn the radio back on
1 = If radio is on, activate SW based RF kill

In the following link (on my computer) /sys/bus/pci/driver/ipw3945/0000:05:00:0 I found the file called rf_kill

It had the value 2. As root I changed it to 0 and now the whole thing works. Also after a reboot.

drmjh · 10-14-2008, 12:27 PM

Thanks for the great tip regarding the Kill_switch. After much searching, I found mine in an adjacent area of the file structure and it was set to 2.
I have run into the oddest problem though. I can't seem to change the contents of this file from 2 to 0. I have chmod the file to rw rw rw and verified this change. Using vim, I was not able to save my change; using nano, I was able to but to no avail. Nano saved the file with the change 0, but reopening the file showed the 2 re-written. Any suggestions?
Matthew