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Lupinius

Member

Registered: 2012-07-23

Posts: 4

Can't get wifi to work, soft block from rfkill can not be removed.

I just got a HP 635 and have everything working, except for wifi (and bluetooth). I have this wireless card in my machine:

[root@Brictop eric]# lspci | grep -i wireless
07:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)

I loaded the ath9k module for it. After this there is one wireless device in iwconfig:

[root@Brictop eric]# iwconfig
eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on

When trying to use it however I get a error regarding rfkill:

[root@Brictop eric]# ip link set wlan0 up
RTNETLINK answers: Operation not possible due to RF-kill

I have two wifi devices in rfkill, one of which I can toggle the hard block of. The soft block of the one I can unblock however does not seem to be changable (I can toggle it for phy0 though):

[root@Brictop eric]# rfkill list wifi
1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no
5: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes
[root@Brictop eric]# rfkill unblock all
[root@Brictop eric]# rfkill list wifi
1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no
5: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes

I found one similar case online, in which toggling the power of the wifi solved the problem, this did not work for me though.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,517

Website

Re: Can't get wifi to work, soft block from rfkill can not be removed.

rfkill toggles are in software (rfkill itself), hardware (actual switches), and bios.

Have you checked all three?

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

Lupinius

Member

Registered: 2012-07-23

Posts: 4

Re: Can't get wifi to work, soft block from rfkill can not be removed.

There is no option in the bios. The hardware switch does work and toggles the hard block.

I'm getting more and more confused though because rfkill lists a total of 4 devices: 2 bluetooth and 2 wireless lan ones. One of each seems to come from an official HP driver (or at least they both have HP in their name), and react to the hardware toggle. The other ones don't react to the hardware toggle and come from the drivers I installed. The soft block on the HP is not removable, the one on the other devices on the other hand is. And the un-soft-blocked wireless LAN device it stuck in hard lock.

EDIT: Blacklisting the HP drivers has solved the problem. WLAN and Bluetooth are both working.

Last edited by Lupinius (2012-08-10 17:29:36)

joefromct

Member

Registered: 2011-05-05

Posts: 11

Re: Can't get wifi to work, soft block from rfkill can not be removed.

what specific HP drivers did you blacklist?

Thanks,

-Joe