Hi folks. Since I did a network install from a USB stick of the 32 bit version of Suse 13.1, my WiFi has stopped working. I performed the initial installation via an Ethernet cable to avoid having to bother setting up the WiFi until the installation was complete. After the installation, I unplugged the Ethernet cable and went to set up the WiFi in Network manager but the Wireless tab was greyed out. So I rebooted into a pre-existing installation of Windows XP, expecting the WiFi to still work in XP, but it didn’t.
Now before anyone sets me ablaze for not reading the stickes already on the forum that address this problem, I should say that I did do as the stickies instructed and it seems to have made the problem slightly worse.
Here’s what I did.
# hwinfo --network
34: None 00.0: 10700 Loopback
[Created at net.124]
Unique ID: ZsBS.GQNx7L4uPNA
SysFS ID: /class/net/lo
Hardware Class: network interface
Model: "Loopback network interface"
Device File: lo
Link detected: yes
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
35: None 00.0: 10701 Ethernet
[Created at net.124]
Unique ID: 4Iz5.ndpeucax6V1
Parent ID: ID95.5g8e3y9cDQ8
SysFS ID: /class/net/enp0s25
SysFS Device Link: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:19.0
Hardware Class: network interface
Model: "Ethernet network interface"
Driver: "e1000e"
Driver Modules: "e1000e"
Device File: enp0s25
HW Address: 00:1b:38:e6:4e:8e
Link detected: no
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
Attached to: #3 (Ethernet controller)
Lists Ethernet interface, but no WiFi. From what I’ve read in the stickies, this should probably be expected given that my Laptop is an HP Compaq 6910p with a Broadcom card. I looked in YaST’s Hardware Information module and it is indeed listed. It isn’t listed under “Network Interface” though, maybe 'cause it isn’t configured correctly, I dunno. Instead it is listed separately under the Heading of “Network Card”. I tried to save the information to a text file, but the save to file button only seems to save all the information, rather than just saving the information under the heading of “Network Card”.
So instead, I did
# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 PCI Express Root Port (rev 0c)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82566MM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M-E) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV516/M64-S [Mobility Radeon X2300]
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b9)
02:06.1 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b9)
02:06.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 03)
02:06.3 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 20)
10:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11a/b/g (rev 02)
which, as you can see, lists the Broadcom on the last line.
When I was looking through the file generated by YaST’s Hardware Information module, I found the line about installing the Broadcom’s Firmware.
So I did as it instructed and did
# /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware
It gave out about half a screen’s worth on output, said the firmware had been successfully installed, locked up, kernel panicked and died. The firmware doesn’t seem to have been installed and since the kernel panic, the Ethernet interface on Windows XP has also stopped working. It still works in Suse, but not in XP. So now its only means of internet access is a rather unreliable Ethernet cable on Suse.
Anyone got any suggestions, or should I consider this laptop useless now? I can’t imagine it’d be beyond repar just from installing Suse, but, I don’t even know how to find what’s actually causing the panic.
