Dell Inspiron 1501 wireless doesn't work after upgrading to 12.1

sparker · 05-04-2008, 07:57 PM

I have just upgraded to 12.1 and I cannot seem to get my wireless working again. I used ndiswrapper on 12.0. Basically, I downloaded the latest slackbuild for ndiswrapper and installed it. I had backed up the windows drivers I used previously, so I used those. After loading the module the interface no longer appears.

lsmod shows:

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
ipv6                  234724  12 
snd_seq_dummy           6660  0 
snd_seq_oss            32896  0 
snd_seq_midi_event     10112  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                50256  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device         10380  3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss            40352  0 
snd_mixer_oss          17920  1 snd_pcm_oss
ndiswrapper           184732  0 
lp                     13348  0 
parport_pc             27556  0 
parport                34632  2 lp,parport_pc
fuse                   45588  1 
ohci_hcd               26628  0 
snd_hda_intel         289052  0 
snd_pcm                72068  2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel
sdhci                  18692  0 
b44                    26896  0 
mmc_core               47236  1 sdhci
ricoh_mmc               6912  0 
video                  19472  0 
output                  6656  1 video
rtc_cmos               11040  0 
thermal                16540  0 
snd_timer              22532  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
psmouse                40336  0 
mii                     8448  1 b44
i2c_piix4              11020  0 
battery                14340  0 
rtc_core               18696  1 rtc_cmos
snd_page_alloc         11528  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
ac                      8068  0 
k8temp                  8192  0 
processor              32680  1 thermal
ati_agp                10764  0 
ssb                    32516  2 ohci_hcd,b44
i2c_core               22528  1 i2c_piix4
hwmon                   6276  1 k8temp
serio_raw               9092  0 
rtc_lib                 6528  1 rtc_core
snd_hwdep              10756  1 snd_hda_intel
agpgart                30664  1 ati_agp
button                 10000  0 
snd                    47716  9 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_hwdep
ehci_hcd               35468  0 
pcmcia                 35884  1 ssb
evdev                  12672  6 
soundcore               9824  1 snd
shpchp                 32788  0 
pcmcia_core            35988  1 pcmcia
sg                     30224  0 
jfs                   177516  4

lspci shows:

Code:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge (rev 10)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:05.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:06.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:12.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2)
00:13.3 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3)
00:13.4 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4)
00:13.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 14)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS485 [Radeon Xpress 1100 IGP]
05:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01)
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
08:01.0 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 19)
08:01.1 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 01)

If I load the b43 module wlan0 appears with iwconfig, but is not shown with ifconfig. Also, any attempts to scan networks or configure the card fails.

Any ideas on what the problem could be? I really don't want to have to go back to 12.0...

onebuck · 05-04-2008, 08:19 PM

Hi,

What do you see with 'ifconfig -a'?

Franklin · 05-04-2008, 08:22 PM

I'm not familiar with this card, but I do have wireless (must count for something I hope)

Some basic questions:

1. Did you comment out the first section in rc.wireless.conf?

2. Did you configure your wireless card in rc.inet1.conf, assigning it an interface (see #IFNAME[4] section) ?

3. Are you using wpa_supplicant? Is it configured and have you created the encrypted passphrase etc.

4. If yes to 3. is this option uncommented in rc.inet1.conf and do you have the driver set to ndiswrapper?

I know nothing about ndiswrapper, but I do have the same laptop with the intel pro wireless 3945 running with iwl3945 and wpa_supplicant.
Hopefully one of the above general questions will clue you in to something you left out.

Perhaps someone with your card can fill in the specifics.

sparker · 05-04-2008, 08:56 PM

Actually, I just solved it. I had everything configured correctly but it seems with the newer kernels there is an issue with certain modules. All I had to do was add:

blacklist b43
blakclist b44
blacklist ohci_hcd
blacklist ssb

To the end of /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist. Anyways hopefully that will be useful to anyone with a similar problem.

indienick · 05-08-2008, 11:58 AM

Thanks for the post, but I've run into a few problems with this:
(Note, I have a Dell Vostro 1000, but I'm pretty sure the rules carry over.)

Blacklisting b44 completely kills the ethernet driver.
Not blacklisting the b44 driver forces the ssb driver to load, regardless of blacklisting.
Even after blacklisting the b44 and ssb drivers, my Wifi LED still won't turn on.