Ubuntu

wireless driver conflict?

Asked by thbsp

i am trying to get my wireless card functioning and seem to have hit a wall. lspci lists the card, as does lshw. the os has a 'wlan0' connection listed, but the hardware for the wireless card doesn't appear to be connected to it. the driver seems to be installed correctly as far as i can tell, but something is obviously not working.
my main symptom is that none of the wireless networks in range are detected, and my other computer can detect at least 5 (student complex, so everyone has wireless it seems). i'm able to specify all the properties of the network i'm trying to connect to (which makes sense as a logical wireless interface exists), but there doesn't appear to be anything connection the logical interface to the hardware itself. roaming mode is currently enabled, but i don't think that is the problem.

i was working my way through this guide:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessTroubleShootingGuide

here is the output for the lshw, along with pccardctl, ifconfig and iwconfig, in case it helps:

------@------:~$ sudo lshw -C network -sanitize
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: 88E8038 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller
       vendor: Marvell Technology Group Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 14
       serial: [REMOVED]
       capacity: 100MB/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=sky2 driverversion=1.20 firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no module=sky2 multicast=yes port=twisted pair
  *-network
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=0 module=ssb
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: wlan0
       serial: [REMOVED]
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11g

------@----:~$ iwconfig
zwlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:""
          Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
          Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2346 B
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

------@------:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1b:24:30:79:23
          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)
          Interrupt:16

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
          RX packets:1520 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1520 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:76832 (75.0 KB) TX bytes:76832 (75.0 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:19:7e:5f:4e:4d
          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)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-19-7E-5F-4E-4D-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING 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)

------@------:~$ sudo pccardctl ident
Socket 0:
  no product info available

thanks!

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Revision history for this message
Robert Di Gioia (digioiar) said : 		#1

Hi

After upgrading to 8.04, I had problems where my adapter (an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG) just would not connect.

What I finally found worked for me (and some, but not all, who have reported similar issues here) is doing the following two commands in a terminal

sudo ifdown -a
sudo ifup -a

Then i could connect...

Maybe this would work for you too

Revision history for this message
Charles Profitt (cprofitt) said : 		#2

Two things:

First make sure that the wireless card is turned on. I am not sure what model you have so that could be as simple as a button or you might need to go in to bios.

Then you have to take a look at if wireless networks are showing up under Network Manager -- upper panel -- right side -- you click on the network icon and see if it lists your AP.

Can you do an lspci and post the results.

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thbsp (thbsp) said : 		#3

the wireless card is on. i have an acer aspire 3680, which has a little button on the front for enabling and disabling the wireless card. the light beside the button shows the card is on. when i started, lshw was showing that the 'network controller' entry (otherwise the same as above) was disabled, but going through the steps in the wireless guide took care of that.

just tried ifdown,ifup as suggested but the access points are still not listed. based on the output from lshw, it seems like the computer has established a logical wireless interface and also has detected a pci card capable of wireless communication, but has failed to link these two. i say this because there are two entries related to the wireless connection, but there is only one for the ethernet interface (which is working fine). i don't have any other computers to compare this to, but i'm assuming that if it was working corrrectly the wireless interface and controller would be a single entry under lshw.

i didn't include the lspci results before since it seemed to be the same information as lshw (at least regarding the wireless card), but here it is if it helps:

------@------:~$ sudo lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8038 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 14)
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01)
0a:09.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
0a:09.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)

Revision history for this message
Charles Profitt (cprofitt) said : 		#4

OK...

the lspci helped alot.

Here are two links that will hopefully get your broadcom setup.

First see if there is a restricted driver for it by going to System | Administration | Hardware Drivers

If it is click it there and install it...

If not:

http://zugaldia.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/setting-up-the-broadcom-bcm94311mcg-in-ubuntu-804/

or

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=769990

Good luck let me know if this helps.

Revision history for this message
thbsp (thbsp) said : 		#5

well, i've gone through all the steps in the wordpress article. took me a while to get ndiswrapper installed, ended up taking it from the live cd, but that seems fine and i installed the driver using ndisgtk.
the network manager utility still doesn't show any networks in range, so there's still something wrong.

all the outputs that i had listed previously haven't changed at all, and i'm assuming that they should have.
specifically, the driver listed for the network controller entry in lshw. ndisgtk calls the new driver bcmwl5 (not sure if it's actually different). should that be the name that appears in lshw?

additionally, the wordpress blog article now indicates that the default ubuntu driver works. where do i get this 'default' driver?
i downloaded the live cd only two weeks ago so i'm assuming that what i have is as up-to-date as possible. is there a way to check?

Revision history for this message
Charles Profitt (cprofitt) said : 		#6

it would be under System | Administration | Hardware Drivers if it was a 'restricted' driver.

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