Arch Linux

Jansson

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-09-10

Posts: 106

[Solved]And even more troubles with wlan(bcm4311)

First of all sorry for starting yet another thread on this, but didn't whant it do exist in a [solved] thread

Well my device is a broadcom bcm4401-bo (in my Hp compaq nx6310). I tried with ndiswrapper and the bcml5 driver, but the result is negative...the driver installs fine, but wlan0 don't show up when
#iwconfig:

lo         no wireless extensions

eth0     no wireless extensions

eth1     no wireless extensions

And #ndiswrapper -l gives:

bcmwl5          driver installed (alternative driver: bcm43xx)

I've already blacklisted the bcm43xx in rc.conf:

MOD_BLACKLIST=(bcm43xx)

Is the problem that my card is 4401 (I gues thats bcm43xx dosen't work atleast)?
I'm asking because I couldn't find anything about the bcm4401 in ndiswrappers list on the web, but a lot of difrent bcm43** cards.

Any help will be greatly appreciated

[Edit]
As discovered further down on this page, the chipset is bcm4311. I now have it running with ndiswrapper and working like a charm^^
I followed this guide: [url]http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread. … light=4311
//Jansson[/url]

Last edited by Jansson (2007-02-20 09:18:02)

RobF

Member

Registered: 2006-10-10

Posts: 157

Re: [Solved]And even more troubles with wlan(bcm4311)

The BCM4401 card is a WIRED ethernet interface, not a wireless one.  That's why ndiswrapper -l doesn't give you "hardware present".  You have to set up the BCM4401 as eth0; it should be supported in Arch through the b44 or tulip module.

Check with lspci whether you have a wireless LAN card ("network controller") in your system and exactly what it is.

Robert

Jansson

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-09-10

Posts: 106

Re: [Solved]And even more troubles with wlan(bcm4311)

Sorry for the late reply but I haven't had the thime until now.
Thanks for the reply RobF, I'm not sure what you mean, but well, I'v checked out what lspci told me:

Network controller: Broadcom corporation Unknown device 4311 (rev 01)

And hwd -l:

Network    : No PCI card or onboard chip

I gues that the hwd writeout explains why the bcm43xx drivers don't work.... Could you explain in more detail or refer to someplace where it is explained (searced the wiki and forum but can't find anything that works)?

P.S hove do I ditch the false eth1 (I gues thats where the wireless goes...)

Thanks for your time and patience

RobF

Member

Registered: 2006-10-10

Posts: 157

Re: [Solved]And even more troubles with wlan(bcm4311)

I'm not entirely clear about which NIC's you've got in your system.  Where did the info come from that you have a  BCM4401 installed?

If you run lspci, do you get the following items in the list of pci devices present?

......  Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
......  Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Unknown device 4311 (rev 01)

If you do, then you have both a wired ethernet (BCM4401) and a wireless ethernet (BCM4311) interface installed in your system.  The first can use the native b44 driver that is present in Arch by default and the second could use the native bcm43xx driver that is also present but can be difficult to get to work.  For the latter, you may be better off using a Windows driver via ndiswrapper.  If you do that then it wouldn't be necessary to blacklist the native bcm43xx driver; Arch simply wouldn't use it.

Here's how you could set up your system to use these interfaces.

Note: You may already have done #1-5 and only need to do #6-10.

1. Connect your machine to WAN through the wired ethernet interface eth0 that almost certainly will be supported by Arch.

2. Get a Windows driver for your wireless card, e.g. from the support CD that came with your card (it would be in the WinXP directory) or from the web if you don't have the CD. To find it on the web, search http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/medi … x.php/List for BCM4311 or for the pciid of your card, or go to the card manufacturer's website. The Windows driver consists of the two files bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys.  Put the driver folder on your Desktop.

3. Install ndiswrapper and ndiswrapper-utils by running
# pacman -Sy ndiswrapper

4. Navigate to the folder on your Desktop that contains the Windows driver files and run
# ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf

5. To check whether the driver has been installed (it should be in /etc/ndiswrapper/bcmwl5, some two dozen files) run
# ndiswrapper -l
If all is well, this should say: "driver installed; hardware present"

6. Edit /etc/rc.conf as follows (as root):

MODULES=(ndiswrapper)

HOSTNAME="your_host_name"    # put in the host name of your machine

lo="lo 127.0.0.1"
eth0="dhcp"    # BCM4401 interface
wlan0="dhcp"    # BCM4311 interface
INTERFACES=(lo eth0 wlan0)

gateway="default gw 192.168.0.1"    # substitute you gateway's IP address here
ROUTES=(gateway)

7. Edit etc/conf.d/wireless as follows (as root):

wlan_wlan0="wlan0 essid name_of_your_wireless_access_point channel number_of_your_channel
key your_WEP_key_in_hexadecimal open"
WLAN_INTERFACES=(wlan0)

An example of the first line would be:

wlan_wlan0="wlan0 essid DamnRouter channel 11 key 1234567890ABCDEF1234567890 open"
If you don't use WEP encryption, you can drop the "key 12345.......... open" phrase.

8. If you want to use your wireless connection, disable the wired interface eth0 by putting an exclamation mark in front of it in INTERFACES, i.e. INTERFACES=(lo !eth0 wlan0).

9. Reboot

10. To check the connection, as root run
# ifconfig (do you have an IP address?)
# iwconfig (does everything look all right?)
# ping google.com (can you connect to Google?)

You should be all set now.

Robert

Jansson

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-09-10

Posts: 106

Re: [Solved]And even more troubles with wlan(bcm4311)

Thanks for your reply.
lspci and lshwd tells me that bcm4401 is installed:
lspci:

02:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-BO 100Base-TX(rev 02)

lshwd:

02.0e.0 0200: Broadcom Corp.|BCM4401-BO 100Base-TX (b44)
08:00.0 0280: Broadcom Corp.|BCM4401-BO 100Base-TX(unknown) //This one I thougth was the wlan at first... there of the confusion...

Jansson

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-09-10

Posts: 106

Re: [Solved]And even more troubles with wlan(bcm4311)

Okey, here are the installation:
I started with reinstalling ndiswrapper and the driver (just to se if it gives any error messages I had forgot...

ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf:

installing bcmwl5 ...
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2
forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2

Unfortunatly ndiswrapper -l still gives:

installed drivers:
bcmwl5        driver installed (alternate driver: bcm43xx)

So I gues that ndiswrapper still don't think the hardware is present.....
After a search on google and only found threads pointing to hopeless... I'm a bit down>.<

Thanks for your help and patiece so far

RobF

Member

Registered: 2006-10-10

Posts: 157

Re: [Solved]And even more troubles with wlan(bcm4311)

I'm still not clear on which NIC's you've got in your system, or why you seem to think you don't have the BCM4311 wireless chip installed.

On 11/22 you wrote:

Thanks for the reply RobF, I'm not sure what you mean, but well, I'v checked out what lspci told me:

Network controller: Broadcom corporation Unknown device 4311 (rev 01)

That would be the BCM4311 wireless chip.

On 11/28 you wrote:

Thanks for your reply.
lspci and lshwd tells me that bcm4401 is installed:
lspci:

02:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-BO 100Base-TX(rev 02)

That would be the BCM4401 wired ethernet controller.

I had asked:

If you run lspci, do you get the following items in the list of pci devices present?

...... Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
...... Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Unknown device 4311 (rev 01)

Could you please post the entire output of lspci?  If you do have the bcm4311 interface present, then please follow the steps that I posted on 11/25.

In /etc/rc.conf did you put ndiswrapper in the MODULES=(.......) line?  Check with 'lsmod | grep ndis' whether the ndiswrapper kernel module is loaded. If it isn't then the installed driver bcmwl5 wouldn't do you any good.  Also, is the bcm4311 adapter turned on (i.e. is the WiFi LED lit?).

You have to distinguish between the ndiswrapper kernel module which is inserted via insmod or modprobe or with the line MODULES=(... ndiswrapper ....) in /etc/rc.conf and the ndiswrapper utility that you run from the command line. The latter installs (-i), removes (-e) and lists (-l) drivers but the drivers can't do anything unless the hardware is detected and the ndiswrapper kernel module is loaded.  The latter requires rebooting or running '/etc/rc.d/network restart'.

Robert

Jansson

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-09-10

Posts: 106

Re: [Solved]And even more troubles with wlan(bcm4311)

ok, here follows my lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller AHCI (rev 01)
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments Unknown device 8039
02:06.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments Unknown device 803a
02:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
08:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Unknown device 4311 (rev 01)

sorry for the late reply