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?

Help please.... :confused:

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...

Does your wireless card work? If so, why do you need an on/off switch?

David1357,

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...

It's a Broadcomm 4318 wireless 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.

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

David 1357,

That sucks but it is what it is...I'm willing to play with that. Where do I start? What is the name of the spec or layout I am trying to find?

This is the first time I've played with laptops and Linux.

Worse case, could I not just buy another "Linux friendly" wireless card and install that?

Or would this PCI bit toggle issue still be in the way?

Once this issue is conquered, will it be possible to map a key combo to toggle the wireless card as under windows?

At the very least I want the card to stay permanently on. I don't want to have to mess with it everytime it boots up, you know?

Thanks

If you buy a card that goes in your PCMCIA/CardBus/PCIE slot, that would work.

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.

Almost anything that is possible on Windows is possible on Linux. But it may take a lot of work.

Yes, I completely understand that. On the other hand, laptop hardware is difficult to modify.

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.

PTrenholme,

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

lshw -C network - gave me this:
*-network
description: Network controller
product: BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 7
bus info: pci@0000:03:07.0
version: 02
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master
configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=64 module=ssb
*-network:0 DISABLED
description: Wireless interface
physical id: 1
logical name: wlan0
serial: 00:90:4b:ff:c9:fc
capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
*-network:1 DISABLED
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 2
logical name: pan0
serial: a2:df:74:94:97:0a
capabilities: ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A link=yes multicast=yes

I have that device in my home laptop. It works great with the b43 driver in Ubuntu 8.10.

Verify that the driver is loaded by running "lsmod" and looking for "b43".

David1357,

Running lsmod provides the following output: I bolded the things that had b43 associated with them. Module b43 has a "Used by" of 0 -- I assume this means there is no driver, correct?
Module Size Used by
af_packet 29568 2
rfkill_input 14080 0
radeon 159136 2
drm 110304 3 radeon
rfcomm 51104 0
sco 20612 2
bridge 64544 0
stp 11268 1 bridge
bnep 23168 2
l2cap 33280 6 rfcomm,bnep
bluetooth 70820 6 rfcomm,sco,bnep,l2cap
ppdev 16904 0
powernow_k8 23812 0
cpufreq_powersave 10368 0
cpufreq_userspace 12420 0
cpufreq_conservative 16392 0
cpufreq_ondemand 16400 1
cpufreq_stats 14468 0
freq_table 13568 3 powernow_k8,cpufreq_ondemand,cpufreq_stats
pci_slot 13704 0
video 29204 0
output 11776 1 video
container 12288 0
sbs 22288 0
sbshc 14592 1 sbs
wmi 15808 0
iptable_filter 11520 0
ip_tables 28176 1 iptable_filter
x_tables 31752 1 ip_tables
ndiswrapper 253696 0
sbp2 32652 0
parport_pc 44200 0
lp 19588 0
parport 50096 3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp
pcmcia 48408 0
arc4 10368 2
ecb 11520 2
crypto_blkcipher 27780 1 ecb
b43 144424 0
snd_atiixp 27796 2
snd_atiixp_modem 23052 0
rfkill 19364 2 rfkill_input,b43
snd_ac97_codec 133080 2 snd_atiixp,snd_atiixp_modem
snd_seq_dummy 11524 0
mac80211 253440 1 b43
ac97_bus 10368 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm_oss 52608 0
snd_mixer_oss 25088 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_oss 42368 0
snd_seq_midi 15872 0
yenta_socket 35084 1
cfg80211 37136 1 mac80211
snd_rawmidi 34176 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_pcm 99208 4 snd_atiixp,snd_atiixp_modem,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_midi_event 16768 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
serio_raw 14596 0
led_class 13192 1 b43
snd_seq 67168 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
rsrc_nonstatic 19328 1 yenta_socket
psmouse 51612 0
pcspkr 11136 0
input_polldev 12816 1 b43
k8temp 13568 0
snd_timer 34320 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 16404 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
pcmcia_core 48804 3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
snd 79432 15 snd_atiixp,snd_atiixp_modem,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_pcm ,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore 16800 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 17680 3 snd_atiixp,snd_atiixp_modem,snd_pcm
joydev 20736 0
evdev 20512 11
battery 21128 0
ac 13448 0
i2c_piix4 17936 0
button 15904 0
i2c_core 36128 1 i2c_piix4
shpchp 42140 0
pci_hotplug 39216 1 shpchp
ext3 150544 1
jbd 66856 1 ext3
mbcache 17924 1 ext3
usbhid 39776 0
hid 59072 1 usbhid
sr_mod 24644 0
cdrom 47784 1 sr_mod
sd_mod 45864 3
crc_t10dif 10240 1 sd_mod
sg 45408 0
ata_generic 14212 0
pata_acpi 13568 0
ohci1394 41524 0
pata_atiixp 14208 2
ieee1394 110592 2 sbp2,ohci1394
ssb 46340 1 b43
libata 201312 3 ata_generic,pata_acpi,pata_atiixp
scsi_mod 183160 5 sbp2,sr_mod,sd_mod,sg,libata
dock 18464 1 libata
ehci_hcd 49548 0
sky2 61444 0
ohci_hcd 35100 0
usbcore 175888 5 ndiswrapper,usbhid,ehci_hcd,ohci_hcd
thermal 27424 0
processor 47800 3 powernow_k8,thermal
fan 13576 0
fbcon 51200 0
tileblit 11264 1 fbcon
font 17152 1 fbcon
bitblit 14592 1 fbcon
softcursor 10496 1 bitblit
fuse 68288 1

No. It just means no other drivers are using b43, which is what you would expect.

So we know the driver loaded. Now it is time to look at the output of "dmesg" and see if the driver had any problems while loading.

Partial output from "dmesg":

[ 14.726149] b43-phy0: Broadcom 4318 WLAN found

[ 14.794839] phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'pid'

[ 14.876901] Broadcom 43xx driver loaded [ Features: PLR, Firmware-ID: FW13 ]

[ 14.998080] Synaptics Touchpad, model: 1, fw: 5.9, id: 0x23aeb3, caps: 0xa04713/0x10008

[ 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).

David1357,

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?

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.