Wireless connections recognized, but no way to connect
 

Before I begin, I would just like to let everyone know that I am still pretty new to Linux, so bear with me, and try and go easy on the terminology please :confused:

I'm running Fedora 11 on a Dell Studio 15 laptop, and I'm having some issues with my wireless connection.

I got the connection to work after I installed Fedora, and it worked perfectly fine for a few days. However, after I booted up the computer today, I saw that no network connection was found. I went to the "Network Connections" window, and clicked on the "Wireless" tab. The wireless connection that I had was still there, and is set to auto connect. However, the icon for my network connections remains two little computers with a small "X" in front of them. There is no way for me to view available networks or anything. Can anyone help me out here?

Thanks ahead of time.

Did you switched on WIFI card button. Show me 'lspci' and 'lsmod' return.

I thought of that, but no the WIFI switch is definitely set to the "on" position. I would also like to point out that at the moment I cannot connect the computer to the internet because I don't have an ethernet cable available where I am. I am writing this reply from a different computer. I'm sure this will make things difficult in terms of troubleshooting, however I will be able to use ethernet starting tomorrow.

Here is lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Graphics Port (rev 07)

00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)

00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)

00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)

00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)

00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)

00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)

00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03)

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)

00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)

00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series

01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV620 Audio device [Radeon HD 34xx Series]

04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)

08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5784M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 10)

09:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)

09:01.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)

09:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)

09:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)

09:01.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev ff)


And lsmod:

Module Size Used by

vfat 8604 1

fat 40664 1 vfat

fuse 49412 2

sco 16168 2

bridge 43864 0

stp 1964 1 bridge

llc 4936 2 bridge,stp

bnep 14900 2

l2cap 32436 3 bnep

bluetooth 77096 5 sco,bnep,l2cap

sunrpc 155632 1

ip6t_REJECT 4532 2

nf_conntrack_ipv6 17716 2

ip6table_filter 3148 1

ip6_tables 10960 1 ip6table_filter

ipv6 235712 22 ip6t_REJECT,nf_conntrack_ipv6

cpufreq_ondemand 6436 2

acpi_cpufreq 8856 0

dm_multipath 14040 0

uinput 6676 0

snd_hda_codec_atihdmi 3168 1

snd_hda_codec_idt 51592 1

snd_hda_intel 24164 3

snd_hda_codec 59380 3 snd_hda_codec_atihdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel

sdhci_pci 6956 0

uvcvideo 50544 0

sdhci 17392 1 sdhci_pci

firewire_ohci 19428 0

mmc_core 48448 1 sdhci

firewire_core 37704 1 firewire_ohci

snd_hwdep 6716 1 snd_hda_codec

videodev 29628 1 uvcvideo

ricoh_mmc 3428 0

snd_pcm 62596 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec

tg3 91796 0

v4l1_compat 12048 2 uvcvideo,videodev

pcspkr 2168 0

dell_laptop 3320 0

usb_storage 46620 1

rfkill 8928 2 dell_laptop

crc_itu_t 1596 1 firewire_core

i2c_i801 10196 0

video 18732 0

iTCO_wdt 10348 0

dcdbas 8460 1 dell_laptop

wmi 5868 0

snd_timer 17876 1 snd_pcm

joydev 9224 0

iTCO_vendor_support 2752 1 iTCO_wdt

snd 50336 12 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer

soundcore 5476 1 snd

output 2476 1 video

snd_page_alloc 7712 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm

radeon 484324 1

drm 168544 2 radeon

i2c_algo_bit 4836 1 radeon

i2c_core 25024 4 i2c_i801,radeon,drm,i2c_algo_bit


Thanks for the reply.

Enter as root command:
modprobe bcm43xx-pci
or (if first one doesn't work):
modprobe bcm43xx

If both desn't work show me result of commands:
cat /boot/<name of config file> | grep BCM
and
iwconfig

When I tried the first two commands, I got:

FATAL: Module bcm4312_pci not found.

And

FATAL: Module bcm4312 not found.

(I assumed you wanted me to fill in the 43xx with my number, but just in case I tried it with 43xx and it came back with the same error)

This is also my noobness coming out, but what configuration file am I using for cat /boot/<name of config file> | grep BCM?

Thanks again.

file usually names:
config-<version of kernel>
Press "Tab" key and it auto-complete name

Okay, I looked in the boot file and found two different config files. one was config-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586 and the other was config-2.6.30.5-43.fc11.i586

I used the second one for that cat command, and got:

CONFIG_CAN_BCM=m

CONGIG_BT_HCIBCM203X=m

CONFIG_MOUSE_BCM5974=m

CONFIG_DVB_BCM3510=m

And iwconfig says:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

pan0 no wireless extensions.

It looks like yours WIFI card driver doesn't load.

I'm not sure what version of kernel do you use so show result of 'uname -r' command.

Had You changed something before wireless stopped working?

The only thing I can think of is that I brought the laptop with me to a different location, and connected to a different wireless network. Then the next time I turned the computer on, back where I connect it to the original network, this happened. It doesn't make any sense that connecting to a different network would do this, however.

I tried redoing what I did to get the wireless to work from the start, but it didn't work. There has to be a way to get it working.

Thanks for you efforts though

I've an idea.
Try this commands (as root):
modprobe b43
or
modprobe b43legacy

I get:

WARNING: Deprecated config file /etc/modprobe.conf, all config files belong into /etc/modprobe.d/
WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl-blacklist, it will be ignored in a future relase.

The result was the same for modprobe b43legacy

Read here maybe this help you.

Check modification date of config-2.6.30.5-43.fc11.i586 file, if it is the same time when yours wifi was broken. I suppose Fedora automatically update kernel, so downgrade it to 2.6.29 may help.