I'm trying to get the wireless working on a HP Pavilion ze2397ea laptop which has a turion 64 bit processor and a BCM4318 AirForce One wireless. I installed ndiswrapper following the instructions in http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/history/378158.

I can run kwifimanager. It finds my access point, and displays the name of the access point. So I assume as far as hardware goes, everything is fine. But I cannot use the connection, for example ping anything doesn't work.

The computer also has a configured ethernet card that works fine.

Must I tell the computer explicitly somehow to use the wireless? I would have thought that when I unplug the ethernet, it would at least try the wireless. There is no encryption on the wireless.

I copy the output of ifstatus, for eth0 and wlan0:

turion:/home/alex # ifstatus eth0
eth0 device: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
eth0 configuration: eth-id-00:c0:9f:de:ad:95
eth0 is up
3: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
link/ether 00:c0:9f:de:ad:95 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.1.202/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global eth0
inet6 fe80::2c0:9fff:fede:ad95/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
eth0 IP address: 192.168.1.202/24
Configured routes for interface eth0:
default 192.168.1.1 - -
169.254.0.0 - 255.255.0.0 eth0
Active routes for interface eth0:
192.168.1.0/24 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.202
169.254.0.0/16 scope link
default via 192.168.1.1
1 of 2 configured routes for interface eth0 up

turion:/home/alex # ifstatus wlan0
wlan0 device: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
wlan0 is up
2: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
link/ether 00:14:a5:19:37:ee brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 168.192.1.203/24 brd 168.192.1.255 scope global wlan0
inet6 fe80::214:a5ff:fe19:37ee/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
wlan0 IP address: 168.192.1.203/24
Configured routes for interface wlan0:
default 192.168.1.1 - -
Active routes for interface wlan0:
168.192.1.0/24 proto kernel scope link src 168.192.1.203
0 of 1 configured routes for interface wlan0 up
wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"inspiracio" Nickname:"turion"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 00:01:38:24:B7:3A
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-29 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:5737 Missed beacon:0
turion:/home/alex #

What do I need to do to use the wireless?
Many thanks in advance.

Can you ping the router itself?
If you can, then it's probably a DNS or routing issue.
If you can't, then it looks like there's a problem with the wireless itself. Haven you checked wep keys etc?
What is the output of "ifconfig wlan0" while it's connected?

Thanks, DarkCow.

I cannot ping the router itself:

turion:/home/alex # ping 168.192.1.1
PING 168.192.1.1 (168.192.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 168.192.1.203: icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable

Output from if config and iwconfig while it's connected is:

turion:/home/alex # ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:A5:19:37:EE
inet addr:168.192.1.203 Bcast:168.192.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::214:a5ff:fe19:37ee/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:31 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:84 (84.0 b) TX bytes:2572 (2.5 Kb)
Interrupt:193 Memory:c0204000-c0205fff

turion:/home/alex # iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"inspiracio" Nickname:"turion"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 00:01:38:24:B7:3A
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-28 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:1 Invalid misc:820 Missed beacon:0

I have disabled encryption on the router, and on the computer using YaST. Previously I used the access point with a different laptop with SuSE 9.3 without encryption.

I had a big problem with my wireless card and router a while back, but it simply turned out that I hadn't disabled the onboard LAN and it would wake up on power up, and override my wireless connection.
I could see the router webpage but not connect to any other site.

could this be your problem?

Hello caulfiek

By disable you mean ifdown? I don't think it's that. If I bring down eth0, still the wireless finds nothing:

turion:/home/alex # ifdown eth0
eth0 device: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
eth0 configuration: eth-id-00:c0:9f:de:ad:95
turion:/home/alex # ifstatus eth0
eth0 device: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
eth0 configuration: eth-id-00:c0:9f:de:ad:95
eth0 is down
turion:/home/alex # ping www.google.com
ping: unknown host www.google.com
turion:/home/alex # ifdown wlan0
wlan0 device: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
turion:/home/alex # ifstatus wlan0
wlan0 device: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
wlan0 is down
turion:/home/alex # ifup wlan0
wlan0 device: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
wlan0 warning: using NO encryption
ERROR: Warning: Could not set up default route via interface
Command ip route replace to default via 192.168.1.1 returned:
. RTNETLINK answers: Network is unreachable
Configuration line: default 192.168.1.1 - -
This needs NOT to be AN ERROR if you set up multiple interfaces.
See man 5 routes how to avoid this warning.

As superuser (su), do a cat /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlan0

and copy paste here.

I'd like to see your wlan0 settings. These are your settings for when you perform an 'ifup wlan0'.

from the looks of your ifup command, that might be where the problem lies.

My mistake. I configured the wlan0 with local IP 168.192.1.203. It should have been 192.168.1.203, acceptable for the router. Now I have configured the right IP and the wireless works.

Thanks for your help.