Dell XPS 1530 Wireless Switch Question [SOLVED]

ruffedgz · 2009-10-22 20:04:43

Below is what I know from my tests for my Dell XPS 1530 and my Broadcom 4312 wireless card:

* Installed a fresh new Arch onto my new HDD (had BAD SECTORS on my previous one).
* After the install of arch i686, I went ahead and tried to setup my wireless.
* I first tried ndiswrapper which worked after using the code below

ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
ndiswrapper -l (showed the wireless card existed)
ndiswrapper -mi
ndiswrapper -m (kept the installed configuration in the ndiswrapper.conf file but also added the alias for wlan0 for ndiswrapper)
depmod -a

vim /etc/rc.conf
...
MODULES=(ndiswrapper)
...

* Restarted my computer and I didn't see the wireless icon on my laptop glow See this picture of a small example. Can barely see it to the left of the power button
* Once I logged in, I made sure ndiswrapper was on by doing a lsmod | grep ndiswrapper
* Also did a iwconfig and noticed it did see the wireless card but still showed it as 'not powered on' for my laptop.
* Restarted the laptop once more but this time left turned on the wireless switch. A picture of what this switch is here. It is to the left of the wireless locator button.
* This time, the wireless icon on my laptop turned on after the loading the modules.
* Did some testing and was able to connect to via wirelessly.
* I turned off ndiswrapper and wanted to test out the Broadcom 4312 wiki's solution as well to see if it did the same thing.
* Was able to install the module /lib/modules/2.6.31-ARCH/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/wl.ko using insmod and made sure I blacklisted b43,ndiswrapper and ssb.
* Restarted my computer and the same situation happened (while wireless switch is set to 'off', it can never be turned on. When the wireless switch is on, wireless works and can be turned on and off at any time).

This is where I need some ideas or conversations about this as I am ignorant to the whole modules and will be looking into this some more as well. Didn't know if anyone how owns a XPS 1330, 1530, etc... laptop that has a switch on it has had this problem? I can also show any specs of my machine if you wish to see as well.

SIDE NOTE: I am also asking this questions because I had the switch working before I needed to do a fresh install of the arch OS. Maybe is was going to break after the recent kernal install as I have seen a few people on this forum talking about that after updating.

::REF::
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Broadcom_BCM4312
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=79240
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=78577
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Del … less_Setup
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_M1530
http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Setup

Last edited by ruffedgz (2009-10-23 23:12:40)

ruffedgz · 2009-10-23 17:24:32

So this is where my knowledge is limited... with the modules

I was reading some more entries from arch linux forum pages to give me more ideas about this (mostly in the Kernal section). I did a search for 'wireless' under the Kernal section and found a common theme, the module rfkill was on and stopping a lot of these wireless drivers from working. I looked into it some more and found what rfkill does:

The rfkill subsystem provides a generic interface to disabling any radio transmitter in the system. When a transmitter is blocked, it shall not radiate any power. (http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/rfkill.txt)

As an experiment, I decided to blacklist the module 'rfkill' from the loading on boot:

echo "blacklist rfkill" >> /etc/modprobe.d/framebuffer_blacklist.conf

Once that is in place, I restarted my computer (with the wirelesss switch off) and tried to turn it back on while logged into Arch. It Worked!!

The odd thing about this though is if I do a lsmod, I still see rfkill on that list:

#lsmod | grep rfkill
rfkill                 19728  2 bluetooth,dell_laptop

Don't know if my way of getting this to work is the proper way but wanted to share.

ruffedgz · 2009-10-23 23:11:57

Ok, did some more snooping around since I had a good feeling that rfkill was causing my problem.

I turned back on my laptop after worked and I guess my solution above didn't work (darn) so you can't place the module 'rfkill' in the blacklist file. What I did find on a Ubuntu forum that someone also had a simular problem with their WiFi. All he did was place a line of code to have his ath_pci module not loadup with 'rfkill' so I did the same exact thing as him but with my situation.

Since both my 'bluetooth' and 'dell_laptop' modules were using 'rfkill' on boot up, I needed to make sure both modules wouldn't so I did the following below:

#vim /etc/modprobe/modprobe.conf
...
...
options bluetooth rfkill=0
options dell_laptop rfkill=0
...
...

The two options commands are what I added to make sure both wouldn't use 'rfkill'. I restarted my computer and did two tests:
1. I started it up with my wireless button turned on
2. I started it up with my wireless button turned off (this time I made sure it was off )
And both came up with positives results. I even found that listing the modules for 'rfkill' didn't show the same result as above:

#lsmod | grep rfkill
rfkill                 19728  0

I will be marking this this as SOLVED (for now)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-22 20:04:43

Dell XPS 1530 Wireless Switch Question [SOLVED]

#2 2009-10-23 17:24:32

Re: Dell XPS 1530 Wireless Switch Question [SOLVED]

#3 2009-10-23 23:11:57

Re: Dell XPS 1530 Wireless Switch Question [SOLVED]

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