Wireless light is on but no networks listed on Mandriva 2010 with BCM4306 (rev03)
 

I am running Madriva 2010 on my HP laptop with a broadcom 4306 rev03 wireless card. I did a google search and found that my hardware was supported with a driver, I downloaded and installed the driver (b43-fwcutter, and all that stuff) and rebooted the computer. I have a light that shows when my wireless card is on and it wasn't lit up until after the reboot, then it lit up. However, when I click on the network icon and click on wireless networks, nothing shows up. I know my home network is up because my wife's computer is hooked to it and running just fine (she has win7). Anyone know what's going on here? I appreciate any help you can give me. Thanks in advance...

What happens if you type the commands "sudo ifconfig", "sudo ifconfig -a", and "sudo iwconfig" in the terminal? 'ifconfig' lists all the interfaces which are 'up' (active), 'ifconfig -a' lists all interfaces regardless of whether or not they're up, and 'iwconfig' tells you which ones are wireless.

What encryption do you have on your wireless network? And do you use DHCP or static addressing?

"ifconfig"
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:C0:9F:54:3A:F5
inet addr:192.168.1.2 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2c0:9fff:fe54:3af5/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:19864 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2785 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:7086688 (6.7 MiB) TX bytes:374863 (366.0 KiB)
Interrupt:16 Base address:0xe800

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:41391 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:41391 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:7925988 (7.5 MiB) TX bytes:7925988 (7.5 MiB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:90:4B:9B:34:EE
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

"ifconfig -a"
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:C0:9F:54:3A:F5
inet addr:192.168.1.2 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2c0:9fff:fe54:3af5/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:20266 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2997 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:7620571 (7.2 MiB) TX bytes:396801 (387.5 KiB)
Interrupt:16 Base address:0xe800

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:47173 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:47173 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:8505868 (8.1 MiB) TX bytes:8505868 (8.1 MiB)

sit0 Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4
NOARP MTU:1480 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:90:4B:9B:34:EE
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

"iwconfig"
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off

sit0 no wireless extensions.


I use DHCP and my encryption is WEP 64-bit. Hope this helps. Thanks.

Well, it sounds like "wlan0" is the one you want to be using, and the interface is up. Try this, then:

(just in case - it looks like it's already up, dunno if it's automatically brought up for you at boot)

If you don't know your router's ESSID, you can run:

and it should list all the ones it finds - you'll just have to work out which one's yours. Hope this helps,

Thanks for the help. I actually was able to get it to work, but after messing around with mandriva for a while I decided to go back to Ubuntu. It was just more of what I was looking for in an OS. Thanks again though, that was driving me nuts!