I'm trying to use an old wifi pci card I moved from a broken laptop to my Thinkpad.
I'm using b43 driver and hands on configuration (pure iwconfig) to associate, but I just cant get it connected. The thing is everything seems fine, i can scan the network (iwlist) and see the AP, but not even plain old WEP authorization succeeds. I have been fooling around with ssb-sprom to update the card (changed address and toggled the bluetooth-coexist bit) and also did the nvram hack to disable whitelist check in bios on the thinkpad.
The configuration and setup is no different from what I do on 5 other computers with other network cards, so it should work.

Here's a summary of my status. Anyone who can help me point out where the problem is and a possible solution?

/Emil

#ifconfig:
wlan2 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:13:e8:02:5c:46
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)

#iwlist
wlan2 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:90:96:52:1D:19
Channel:10
Frequency:2.457 GHz (Channel 10)
Quality=57/70 Signal level=-53 dBm
Encryption keyn
ESSID:"Egil-net"
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s
Mode:Master
Extra:tsf=00000002d2eb3237
Extra: Last beacon: 276ms ago
IE: Unknown: 00084567696C2D6E6574
IE: Unknown: 010482848B96
IE: Unknown: 03010A

wlan2 2 key sizes : 40, 104bits
4 keys available :
[1]: <snip> (104 bits)
[2]: off
[3]: off
[4]: off
Current Transmit Key: [1]

#iwconfig:
wlan2 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"Egil-net"
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption key:<snip>
Power Managementff

#dmesg:

[23518.508106] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/ucode5.fw
[23518.635852] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/pcm5.fw
[23518.696862] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/b0g0initvals5.fw
[23518.755724] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/b0g0bsinitvals5.fw
[23518.884168] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 (2007-05-26 15:32:10)
[23518.943435] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan2: link is not ready
[23620.256378] wlan2: direct probe to AP 00:90:96:52:1d:19 (try 1)
[23620.258103] wlan2: direct probe responded
[23620.258114] wlan2: authenticate with AP 00:90:96:52:1d:19 (try 1)
[23620.456161] wlan2: authenticate with AP 00:90:96:52:1d:19 (try 2)
[23620.656161] wlan2: authenticate with AP 00:90:96:52:1d:19 (try 3)
[23620.856143] wlan2: authentication with AP 00:90:96:52:1d:19 timed out

#lspci:
02:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)

Slot: 0000:02:02.0
Class: Network controller [0280]
Vendor: Broadcom Corporation [14e4]
Device: BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller [4320]
SVendor: Dell [1028]
SDevice: Device [0003]
Rev: 03
00: e4 14 20 43 06 01 00 00 03 00 80 02 00 40 00 00
10: 00 00 20 d0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 10 03 00
30: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0b 01 00 00

#sprom:
014000000300281020430080020002000010001800000000FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF130002E8465C130002E8465C130002E8465CFFFF45309A1193FBA5FE FFFFFFFF3C000000000000003E000C00FFFF00000000000000000179

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

It's missing firmware. Mine (4312)says
requesting firmware ...ucode13.fw
requesting firmware ...<some other thing>
loading firmware ......ucode13.fw
loading firmware ......<some other thing>

Check the contents of /lib/firmware/b43. 4306 uses the b43legacy driver. I think fw version 4.10 is a bit old, but check the webpage.
Last time I checked, b43 didn't do wep. When doing it by hand, I found this approach best.
wpasupplicant -Dwext -iwlan0 -c<config> && iwconfig wlan0 essid "Egil-net" ap 00:90:96:52:1D:19

Nope, sorry but that doesn't seem to solve it. Changed to fwcutter 13 and firmware 478.104, but no changes. Still authentication timeout.
BTW, it is a rev 3 chip, so according to documentation it should be b43 not b43legacy driver, and that is also what is automatically loaded and what will create the interface when probed. Any other suggestions? Any smart method of tracing?

When you run the cutter on the windows drivers, it extracts about 15 pieces of firmware. Did you get that display.? I have found nothing better than to follow the page I gave you exactly. It tells you what version of fwcutter to use, what driver, command line, etc.
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#firmware