Asus N53SV wireless hard-blocked. Switching hardware button does not help

English Network/Internet
1

The wireless connection on my Asus N53SV (At least I think that’s what it’s named) does not work. When attempting to use wireless, it says wireless is either hard- or soft blocked.
I recently installed opensuse 12.2 instead of Windows, and had the wireless connection working for a couple of weeks.

Hardware light is currently off.
rfkill list:
0: asus-wlan: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes

switching wireless hardware button on (fn+f2 - turns the hardware light on)
rfkill list:
0: asus-wlan: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: yes

Has been rebooted, formatted, no clues as to why wireless is turned off in BIOS - basically: I have no idea why it does not work nor what to do next.

2

On 12/11/2012 11:06 AM, lisby wrote:
> switching wireless hardware button on (fn+f2 - turns the hardware light
> on)

but, the hard block remains ‘yes’, so it looks like a hardware problem
to me (that is, Fn+F2 turns the machines wireless light off and on,
but not the wireless electronics [radio transmitter/receiver])

you mentioned BIOS, have you been there to see if wireless is switched
off in there?? i’d guess it has to be ON in the BIOS for the Fn+F2 to be
switch both the light and the wireless…

OH! i see it worked a “couple of weeks” and then stopped…i guess
maybe you ran in some updates and one of them broke the driver…hmmm,
maybe a kernel ??

–
dd

3

Oh - kinda sorta forgot some info - sorry.
Following https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/wireless/391535-my-wireless-doesnt-work-primer-what-i-should-do-next.html

lspci - edited output:
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1000
and from lspci -n:
03:00.0 0280: 8086:0083

Attempting to find device info from kernel - I managed to find the following, buried deep in the output from dmesg | less (approximately line 700 of ~1000).

   15.046563] Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, in-tree:d
   15.046566] Copyright(c) 2003-2012 Intel Corporation
   15.046648] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: pci_resource_len = 0x00002000
   15.046651] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: pci_resource_base = ffffc90005800000
   15.046653] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: HW Revision ID = 0x0
   15.046744] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: irq 49 for MSI/MSI-X
   15.514324] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
   15.514326] cfg80211:   (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
   15.514328] cfg80211:   (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
   15.514330] cfg80211:   (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
   15.514332] cfg80211:   (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
   15.514333] cfg80211:   (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
   15.514335] cfg80211:   (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
   15.555199] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1b.0: irq 50 for MSI/MSI-X
   15.564683] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 39.31.5.1 build 35138
   15.564796] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUG enabled
   15.564799] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUGFS enabled
   15.564801] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEVICE_TRACING disabled
   15.564803] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEVICE_TESTMODE disabled
   15.564805] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_P2P disabled
   15.564808] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Centrino(R) Wireless-N 1000 BGN, REV=0x6C
   15.564880] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: L1 Disabled; Enabling L0S
   15.586190] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: device EEPROM VER=0x15d, CALIB=0x6
   15.586193] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Device SKU: 0x50
   15.586195] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Valid Tx ant: 0x1, Valid Rx ant: 0x3
   15.586205] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 0 802.11a channels

iwconfig:


wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off

iwlist scan:


wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down

I’m currently at my university, and the other guys I share workspace with have their wireless internet working. I can’t say for sure, but I would guess, the output would be the same at the other three wireless networks I attempted connecting to earlier (the problem has been present for more than a week now. It’s annoying, but I am able to work my way around it - wireless would be nicer though).

@dd: I’m not sure, whether you wanted me to do anything and post results - if so, please elaborate, I’m not that familiar with opensuse yet.

4

On 12/11/2012 01:46 PM, lisby wrote:
> I’m not that familiar with opensuse yet.

have you worked your way through the other two posts at the top of this
forum
https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/wireless/
(each marked as sticky)

i ask because one or a combo of those three answer most questions for
most folks…

but, as said: i think your machine has a hardware problem–but, wait for
a better helper…(i can’t help more–one of those stickies got me going!)

–
dd

5

I have followed (well, obviously, as I posted my failing results from the attempt :)) “A primer on what to do next”.
I additionally followed “Getting your wireless to work” earlier -also until I hit a dead end when scanning.
Only additional thing to report is from step III. Result of dmesg | grep firmware:

   15.530225] iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 39.31.5.1 build 35138

As for “Welcome”: I see there are a few missing items, I’ll just round them all up here:
1 ) make and model of wireless device.
lspci - edited output:
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1000
and from lspci -n:
03:00.0 0280: 8086:0083

**2 ) driver version in use
**I assume this is the output from dmesg | less? In that case, it ought to be:
Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, in-tree:d

3 ) any error message.
Nothing except “connection blocked by software/hardware” when hovering the wireless tray icon.

4 ) what you have tried to rectify the problem.
Followed the guides provided here - until I was no longer able to get the described results.
Additionally, I have spent hours searching google for other places where a similar problem might be described and hopefully solved, but I have found no such place. The issue were, for some, caused by a dual-boot windows turning the wireless connection off. I however, only have opensuse, and, as earlier mentioned, has already had the wireless working…

** 5 ) any trouble-shooting guide you have tried to follow.**
Apart from the two provided here - no.

** 6 ) openSUSE version
**12.2

**7 ) type /sbin/lspci -v" in a terminal; copy and paste the section that identifies your wireless card and it’s chipset.
**03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1000
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1000 BGN
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 49
Memory at ddc00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8]
Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [e0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number 74-e5-0b-ff-ff-4e-96-64
Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi

And thanks for your time dd - unfortunately, this seems to be a rather unusual issue (quite possibly me doing stupid things).[/size]

6

On 12/11/2012 09:46 AM, lisby wrote:

The systems that rely on a wmi routine to operate the wireless switch can be a
real pain. The fact that toggling the wireless switch sets the soft block rather
than clearing the hard block makes me suspect acer-wmi. It has been the source
of problems in the past when it mistakenly loaded on other vendor’s machines,
and there certainly could be a problem on your particular laptop.

What happens when you use ‘sudo /sbin/modprobe -rv acer-wmi’? Does that help the
rfkill blocking?

7

On 12/11/2012 04:46 PM, lisby wrote:
> And thanks for your time dd -

welcome

> unfortunately, this seems to be a rather
> unusual issue (quite possibly me doing stupid things).

i think it is something you are doing…and, i am VERY happy to see that
Larry found your thread interesting…he is one of a few real gurus here…

suggest you answer all his questions and follow all of his advice,
carefully…

(if you don’t understand either say something before doing it wrong)…

–
dd http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat

8

Nope - that doesn’t help. I do not get any reply when executing the command.

modprobe -l: the acer-wmi seems to be present afterall:


> sudo /sbin/modprobe -l | grep wmi
kernel/drivers/platform/x86/asus-wmi.ko
kernel/drivers/platform/x86/asus-nb-wmi.ko
kernel/drivers/platform/x86/eeepc-wmi.ko
kernel/drivers/platform/x86/dell-wmi.ko
kernel/drivers/platform/x86/dell-wmi-aio.ko
**kernel/drivers/platform/x86/acer-wmi.ko**
kernel/drivers/platform/x86/hp-wmi.ko
kernel/drivers/platform/x86/wmi.ko
kernel/drivers/platform/x86/msi-wmi.ko
kernel/drivers/platform/x86/mxm-wmi.ko
kernel/sound/core/snd-rawmidi.ko
9

On 12/12/2012 09:44 AM, dd wrote:
> i think it is something you are doing

d@mn! that was supposed to read:

i don’tthink it is something you are doing

–
dd

10

On 12/12/2012 03:46 AM, lisby wrote:
>
> lwfinger;2510297 Wrote:
>> On 12/11/2012 09:46 AM, lisby wrote:
>>
>> The systems that rely on a wmi routine to operate the wireless switch
>> can be a
>> real pain. The fact that toggling the wireless switch sets the soft
>> block rather
>> than clearing the hard block makes me suspect acer-wmi. It has been the
>> source
>> of problems in the past when it mistakenly loaded on other vendor’s
>> machines,
>> and there certainly could be a problem on your particular laptop.
>>
>> What happens when you use ‘sudo /sbin/modprobe -rv acer-wmi’? Does that
>> help the
>> rfkill blocking?
>
> Nope - that doesn’t help. I do not get any reply when executing the
> command.
>
> modprobe -l: the acer-wmi seems to be present afterall:
>
> Code:
> --------------------
>
> > sudo /sbin/modprobe -l | grep wmi
> kernel/drivers/platform/x86/asus-wmi.ko
> kernel/drivers/platform/x86/asus-nb-wmi.ko
> kernel/drivers/platform/x86/eeepc-wmi.ko
> kernel/drivers/platform/x86/dell-wmi.ko
> kernel/drivers/platform/x86/dell-wmi-aio.ko
> kernel/drivers/platform/x86/acer-wmi.ko
> kernel/drivers/platform/x86/hp-wmi.ko
> kernel/drivers/platform/x86/wmi.ko
> kernel/drivers/platform/x86/msi-wmi.ko
> kernel/drivers/platform/x86/mxm-wmi.ko
> kernel/sound/core/snd-rawmidi.ko

As the module is loaded, I find it surprising that the unload failed to list
anything. I am not sure the command was entered correctly, but we will try
another tack.

In file /etc/modprobe.d/50-blacklist.conf, add a new line at the bottom that says


blacklist acer-wmi

Then reboot and repeat the rfkill test.

11

Terribly sorry about the late reply. I thought I was receiving notifications for this thread on new replies, but somehow, this last one didn’t provide any.

And now to the embarassing part. Apparently, my computer has two hardware buttons for en-/disabling the wifi. One keystroke combination (fn+f2), and one button on the side of the laptop. I saw this button just two days ago, and had the chance to test my wireless connection today. Result: One happy, wireless network-using, embarassed me. Thanks to everyone who offered their help!

12

And I was checking this thread since I installed succesfully on 2 of those machines, one user now complains he has no wifi. Gave him a call to check the Fn-F2 combo, no use, he called back to tell me he found the second button… and it wasn’t you :smiley:

13

On 12/27/2012 08:06 AM, Knurpht wrote:
>
> lisby;2513753 Wrote:
>> Terribly sorry about the late reply. I thought I was receiving
>> notifications for this thread on new replies, but somehow, this last one
>> didn’t provide any.
>>
>> And now to the embarassing part. Apparently, my computer has two
>> hardware buttons for en-/disabling the wifi. One keystroke combination
>> (fn+f2), and one button on the side of the laptop. I saw this button
>> just two days ago, and had the chance to test my wireless connection
>> today. Result: One happy, wireless network-using, embarassed me. Thanks
>> to everyone who offered their help!
>
> And I was checking this thread since I installed succesfully on 2 of
> those machines, one user now complains he has no wifi. Gave him a call
> to check the Fn-F2 combo, no use, he called back to tell me he found the
> second button… and it wasn’t you :smiley:

At least rfkill told the truth, and I think I understand the logic. As the
button on the side only blocks the wifi, you can kill it for security reasons,
but still leave Bluetooth available for devices such as a mouse or keyboard. The
Fn-F2 combo will kill both when you need all radios silent such as in a blast zone.