wifi B43 problems

English Network/Internet
#1

Hi there,

I have an HP6720s notebook and just installed 11.2. Unfortunately my wifi will not start. I have manually installed the firmware and i still can not bring the wifi up and running.

when i check with demsg i get the following:

*28.170289] BIOS EDD facility v0.16 2004-Jun-25, 1 devices found
29.904055] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/ucode13.fw
29.911830] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/b0g0initvals13.fw
30.056056] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 478.104 (2008-07-01 00:50:23)
30.136725] Registered led device: b43-phy0::tx
30.136750] Registered led device: b43-phy0::rx
30.136772] Registered led device: b43-phy0::radio
30.143444] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
30.156084] b43-phy0: Radio hardware status changed to DISABLED *

I can not enable the wifi at all by pressing the soft button, so I don’t think that’s the issue here.

When i enable with ifup I get the following:

ifup wlan0
wlan0 name: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
wlan0 starting wpa_supplicant
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Unknown error 132
Could not set interface ‘wlan0’ UP
RTNETLINK answers: Unknown error 132
Starting DHCP4 client on wlan0. .
wlan0 DHCP4 client NOT running
RTNETLINK answers: Unknown error 132
Cannot enable interface wlan0.
interface wlan0 is not up

Probably meaning that the hardware is not enabled. But how can i enable the hardware if there is no switch just a soft button? During startup I can see the wifi light flicker but than it turns of and stays that way.

When I check with hardware information Wifi is registered as follows:

dev name: wlan0
driver: b43
Kernel driver: b43
hardware adress: 00:21:00:0f:c3:06

Any idea what is going on here? I would be very happy about some good suggestions.

Many thanks in advance!

Cheers, Chris

#2

On 05/02/2010 10:36 AM, ibm new wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> I have an HP6720s notebook and just installed 11.2. Unfortunately my
> wifi will not start. I have manually installed the firmware and i still
> can not bring the wifi up and running.
>
> when i check with demsg i get the following:
–snip–

> I can not enable the wifi at all by pressing the soft button, so I
> don’t think that’s the issue here.

I think it is the issue. The soft button on HP laptops is handled by a
module called hp-wmi. Is that one loaded on your system? Use the command
‘lsmod | grep wmi’ to test for it. If that command does not produce any
output, the manually load it with ‘sudo /sbin/modprobe -v hp-wmi’. Does
the button work now? If hp-wmi was already loaded, or the RFKILL button
still does not work after loading the module, please repost here, and I
will tell you how to contact the maintainer of that module.

#3

Hi,

Thanks for the prompt reply. I’ve done like you said and the command didn’t produce any output, even after loading the module manually.

If you have any further suggestions I would be very happy.

Again many thanks for your response,

Cheers, Chris

#4

Hi,

I manually installed rfkill and manually loaded wmi. When i do 'lsmod | grep wmi

I now get
hp_wmi 6840 0
rfkill 22868 2 hp_wmi,cfg80211
wmi 7720 1 hp_wmi

But i still don’t get wifi to work. Any suggestions here?

Thanks a ton for any input!

Cheers, Chris

#5

Ok, found out the problem. Resetting the laptop by removing the laptop’s battery resolved the problem. Wireless on a Compaq 6720 s works fine now! (11.2)

Thanx for all the info and help.

:wink:

#6

Forgot to mention that you do have to do the following to get your wifi working on a 6720:

sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware
sudo /sbin/modprobe -v b43
sudo /sbin/modprobe b43
sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan

:wink: