[SOLVED] Need to turn on wireless card on Gateway 7510G AMD 64 laptop w/Kubuntu 8.10
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Need to turn on wireless card on Gateway 7510G AMD 64 laptop w/Kubuntu 8.10
I've installed Kubuntu 8.10 on a Gateway 7510G AMD 64 Laptop.. runs great, just can't figure out how to turn on the wireless card. Under Windows the Fn+F2 key combo turned the card off/on - a symbol would light up when the card was on. Under Linux the key combo doesn't seem to work. I've loaded the drivers (which was "fun").
I've pulled up the user manuals, etc for the laptop online and the key combo is the only means to turn card off/on..there is no physical switch (like on my newer Dell).
How can I get the card turned on? Windows is gone, it's a linux only machine now.
I'm hoping there is something in the BIOS or a way to map the keys to make the key combo work, maybe?
I'm hoping there is something in the BIOS or a way to map the keys to make the key combo work, maybe?
If the symbol does not light up when you load the driver, it might not know about the light. Usually those things are controlled by a GPIO pin in the chipset. The light being on or off may not have anything to do with the operation of the card.
If you know what register in PCI space turns on the light, you might be use setpci. You would need the datasheet for your chipset. If it was an Intel chipset, that would be easy to get. I do not know how much documentation AMD makes available.
Good luck...
Last edited by David1357; 03-16-2009 at 04:36 PM.
Reason: Noticed that the OP wanted to turn the light on, not off.
Right now the card does not seemed to be recognized. If the light is suppose to come on when the driver is correctly loaded, then the driver didn't take.
I've tried to ping the router, nothing. That's primarily why I believe the card is not "on". The Network Manager should show a card being present..if I understand correctly... but nothing is there.
If the light does or doesn't work under Linux.. that's fine. I just want the wireless connectivity.
PTrenholme,
I don't "need" the on/off switch, but it exist. A software-only switch, in some of the how-tos I've read it advises to jump back into windows, turn the wireless card on then jump back to Linux. That scenario assumes you are dual booted. My laptop is Linux only...so that isn't an option for me. I'd find it hard to believe that there is no way to turn on the card...
I'd find it hard to believe that there is no way to turn on the card...
Get ready to suspend your disbelief. You are entering the world of wireless devices and their infinite variety.
There probably is a way, and it probably requires toggling a bit in the PCI configuration space. Finding out which bit you need to toggle will be very difficult. Apparently, you had some handler in Windows for that key combination that did the necessary bit toggling. My guess is there was a custom driver for your system that did the necessary work.
Worse case, could I not just buy another "Linux friendly" wireless card and install that?
If you buy a card that goes in your PCMCIA/CardBus/PCIE slot, that would work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spearhead40
Or would this PCI bit toggle issue still be in the way?
The line that turns on that light may also be connected to the line that powers the actual card. If you buy another internal card, you may have the same problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spearhead40
Once this issue is conquered, will it be possible to map a key combo to toggle the wireless card as under windows?
Almost anything that is possible on Windows is possible on Linux. But it may take a lot of work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spearhead40
At the very least I want the card to stay permanently on. I don't want to have to mess with it every time it boots up, you know?
Yes, I completely understand that. On the other hand, laptop hardware is difficult to modify.
Last edited by David1357; 03-18-2009 at 09:30 AM.
Reason: Fixed broken quote close tag.
Did you run the b43_fwcutter program to install the required Broadcom firmware? If not, the card won't work with the b43 driver that's installed by default.
I did run the b43-fwcutter utility, I believe I did it correctly. Is there a way to tell if the driver is loaded correctly when the wireless card concerned is not responding?
This is what I get with iwconfig:
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr: off Fragment thr=2352 B
Power Management: off
Link Quality:0 Signal level: 0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
lspci -v -- Gives me the following:
03:07.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation Device 0449
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 22
Memory at c0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
Kernel modules: ssb
[ 15.033061] input: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input9
[ 17.126170] lp: driver loaded but no devices found
[ 17.251629] ndiswrapper version 1.53 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=no)
[ 17.324896] usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper
then at the bottom it talks about errors -- I'm guessing the source of my problem -- :
[ 27.663102] input: b43-phy0 as /devices/virtual/input/input10
[ 27.752074] firmware: requesting b43/ucode5.fw
[ 27.798817] b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode5.fw" not found
[ 27.798831] b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Dr...devicefirmware and download the latest firmware (version 4).
[ 27.881850] input: b43-phy0 as /devices/virtual/input/input11
[ 27.952060] firmware: requesting b43/ucode5.fw
[ 27.957601] b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode5.fw" not found
[ 27.957614] b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Dr...devicefirmware and download the latest firmware (version 4).
What version of firmware are you using for your BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)? 4.150.10.5, b43legacy or bcm43xx? I downloaded the bcm43xx... would the newest be better?
...
[ 17.251629] ndiswrapper version 1.53 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=no)
---
I'm guessing the source of my problem
...
No, the problem you have is that you've installed ndiswrapper. You cannot use two different drivers for the same device (unless they share memory, which the b43 and ndiswrapper driver do not).
Remove the old, obsolete, and unneeded ndiswrapper driver and reboot. Or just do a modprobe -r ndiswrapper to see if removing it fixes your problem and then remove it if it does.
Since you're using Ubuntu, you (presumably) did an apt-get install ndiswrapper to install it, so an apt-get remove ndiswrapper should remove it. If you installed it by some other method, let us know what you did so we can help you get rid of the interfering software.
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