Dear all

I think I have got myself into a real mess. I did have Linux Mint debian 201303 working perfectly on my Sony F series VPCF23N1E until I had the bright idea of install Nvdia drivers which lead to a total mess and a reinstall. On reinstall found wireless (and bluetooth) not to be working!
RF-KILL gives me the following
Sonywifi: wireless LAN
Soft Blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes
sony bluetooth: bluetooth
soft blocked no
hard blocked yes
phy0: wireless LAN
soft blocked: no
hardblocked: yes

General information of chipset etc:

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0032] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. Device [105b:e044]
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
Region 0: Memory at f7000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
Expansion ROM at f7080000 [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ath9k
I have tried advise from various thread but got nowhere apart from confusing myself.
Any help would be gratefully received

Thanks

You might check the dmesg output for wireless information. Like firmware version and any noted errors. Beyond that try to use it.

# iwlist wlan0 scanning

If you see other available networks, then the driver is likely working. Not to imply the best driver version or firmware version for your device, but it can do something at least. Beyond that you have to configure the device and connect to a network. Various ways to do that depending on the network.

If all that is in place then there's a few other factors that could stand in your way. A firewall that is blocking packets. Or routing that has your packets trying to go someplace less than useful. And then there's DNS that allows the use of meaninful names as in website names, not IPs.

# iwconfig
# ifconfig
# route -n
# iptables-save

Some useful information could be had from those. There's a more modern way with the ip command and other options to gather details about your device and configuration, but I find the old ways, simpler. Or at least more familiar.

Dear Shadow 7

I am not very technical and I did not understand all of the kind advice you gave but here are the results of the instructions you suggest:
iwlist wlan0 scanning:
wlan0 interface doesn't support scanning ; network is down

iwconfig

lo no wireless extensions
eth1 no wireless extensions
wlan0 IEEE 802.iibgn ESSIDff/any
mode: Managed Access Point: not-associated Tx-Power=off
retry long limit: 7 RTS thr;off fragment thrff
encryption key: off
Power management: on

Ifconfig

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr f0:bf:97:de:35:5f
inet addr:192.168.0.2 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::f2bf:97ff:fede:355f/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:301362 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:300708 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:54669627 (52.1 MiB) TX bytes:41880688 (39.9 MiB)
Interrupt:49 Base address:0x4000

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:2581 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2581 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:123995 (121.0 KiB) TX bytes:123995 (121.0 KiB)

route -n

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth1
192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1

Does this help shed any light on the problem.

I fear the problem may be worse than I first thought, the wireless does not work when I use a puppy CD either, it is not recognised by puppy? could this be a hardware problem

Since you did not give details on which thread.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=194&t=84881

Did you look at that one?

dear rokytnji

Thinks for the link I have looked at it but I could not work out how to do this:

OK. The problem is SOLVED. There was a conflict between ath9k driver and acer_wmi.
The solution was to blacklist acer_wmi.
You need to edit /etc/modprobe.d./blacklist.conf, add blacklist acer_wmi in that file and restart computer.

I can get to the file but how do i edit it?

However as I said in the last post I think there could be a hardware fault because I cannot get wireless using live CD like Puppy, which used to work perfectly well with the laptop. How do I tell if it is a hardware problem?

Housemartin

You need to start at your wireless keyboard key on a Sony to make sure it was not inadvertantly hit.
Edit: If me. I would also go into the bios and make sure that wireless and bluetooth is enabled and turned on before even booting up Mint.



Because your post shows

1.Sonywifi: wireless LAN
a. Hard blocked: yes
2.sony bluetooth: bluetooth
a.hard blocked yes
3.phy0: wireless LAN
a.hardblocked: yes

My guess, owning 5 dogs and 3 cats (if this was me) is that one of my pets stepped on the keyboard and hit the
wireless turn me off hotkey if I owned a Sony Laptop which I don't. My animals jump in my lap all the time when I am in the recliner and using the laptop. I lost a "m" key once on the keyboard because of just that kind of thing. So check your Wireless Hotkey that turns on wireless on and off first and look for a light that turns on and off somewhere on the laptop. You'll notice in that thread that their wireless is soft blocked. Not Hard blocked like yours.

If you have to blacklist.

manuver to the file suggested. Open Mints text editor with that text file with right click I guess. Edit as suggested. Use save on the editors taskbar. Close File manager and reboot and see if it fixes things. (I always make a backup of a root file before editing) So in case mistakes are made. I have a original to fall back on.

I reiterate though. I would check the hotkeys first because you say bluetooth is dead also and readout shows it is hard blocked. I really doubt you need to blacklist yet before checking that out first.

(I am not on my Mint box right now so I can't remember the names of applications). I am in AntiX right now.

Dear rokytnji

I could hug you!I knew the answer had to be simple: yes I had turned off the physical wireless switch on the front of the laptop. I cannot thank you enough. This has been driving me potty for several weeks.

A very happy housemartin