Ubuntu sees my wireless card as a USB controller

Asked by Broderick

I've just recieved a new DELL XPS M1330 laptop. It has the Dell Wireless Mini Card 1395 in it.

I'm currently using the Hardy beta, but Gutsy also gives identical results.

Everything has worked out of the box except for wireless. The restricted driver manager does not ever recognize that I have a card. I've tried manually installing the Linux driver and tried the old fashioned wrapping of the Windows driver to no avail.

It would appear that Ubuntu is unable to see my wireless card at all. Here's a copy of my lspci output:

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)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8400M GS (rev a1)
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
03:01.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)
03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
03:01.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev ff)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller (rev 01)
------------
You can see down at the bottom there, that what should be listed as a wireless card is instead listed as USB controller.

This card works fine in Windows presently.

I have no idea what to do. The proceedure should be simple if only I could get Linux to recognize my wireless cards existence, or so I've been led to believe. I have no idea how to approach this one.

Please help. This is the first time in using Linux that I've just been completely stumped. I haven't stopped working on this for a week. I've found no help at ubuntuforums.org or dell's forums or Google.
In fact, I haven't found anyone anywhere with this kind of problem.

Or perhaps I misunderstand my problem completely. Either way, I'm really in need on this one.

Any ideas or suggestions are hugely appreciated. Many thanks.

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Solved by:
peter b
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Best peter b (b1pete) said :
#1

hello Broderick,

yes, your wifi interface is the last on your listing above -BCM4310 USB Controller (rev 01)

   - in case your output to

uname -a

command DOES NOT contain i386 or amd64 which on Dell's laptops apparently is the case (it contains i686 based on a similar problem recently solved for a Dell -ticket #26976)

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx/Feisty_No-Fluff

howto applies.

    - if the output to the above command DOES CONTAIN i386 or amd64

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx/Gutsy

howto applies.

take a look also at ticket/question #26976 - you'll see how a similar problem was solved.

hope this helps.

peter b

Revision history for this message
Broderick (employeeno5) said :
#2

Thank you so much for the help Peter.

I think I'm in good shape.

Revision history for this message
Broderick (employeeno5) said :
#3

Thanks peter b, that solved my question.

Revision history for this message
Vikram Kale (vikram-kale) said :
#4

Hi Pete,

I have the same issue and followed the step given but still having hard time. Say invalid driver.

vkale@vkale-laptop:~/bcm43xx$ ndiswrapper -l
bcmwl5 : invalid driver!

Regards,
Vikram Kale

Revision history for this message
peter b (b1pete) said :
#5

hello Vikram Kale,

the status of this ticket/question is reported as solved, as you could see, by Broderick the author of this question. the answer that solved his/this ticket PERTAINS specifically to his pc setup as he posted it.

however, if you have/encounter problems implementing the howtos described I would suggest/strongly recommend opening a new question/ticket with your specific problem for YOUR specific pc setup.

no doubt that either I or somebody else will answer and try to get your problem solved.

regards,
peter b