[REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

cjohnson · 2012-12-09 01:26:18

I just installed Arch on the computer I'm using right now (Dell Inspiron 1011 [Mini 10v]), but I can't get my Wi-Fi card (Broadcom BCM4312) to work.
Checklist of stuff I've tried:

Restart
Update
Trawl the forums and wiki
Reload the driver it's using (wl)
Tried unsuccessfully (I think) to change drivers
Tried Broadcom's driver (see above)
...And so on

If you need any config files, ask; I don't know which ones you might need. I'm comfortable with Linux and the command line.
Expeditious help would be appreciated, because I don't want to spend too long trying to fix this.

EDIT: I have Ubuntu on a different partition on this computer and the Wi-Fi works there. Can I copy the driver or something to Arch and have it work?

Last edited by cjohnson (2013-01-01 23:56:30)

Trilby · 2012-12-09 01:34:04

What do you mean when you say it doesn't work? What doesn't work? What error messages or output do you get?

PS: I don't think you need to use wl for that card. what does `lspci -vnn | grep 14e4` give you?

Last edited by Trilby (2012-12-09 01:36:41)

cjohnson · 2012-12-09 01:45:06

Trilby wrote:

What do you mean when you say it doesn't work? What doesn't work? What error messages or output do you get?
PS: I don't think you need to use wl for that card. what does `lspci -vnn | grep 14e4` give you?

I should have been more clear. Sorry. I have no wlan0 interface. When I run lspci -vnn | grep 14e4, I get

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)

When I try and run # wifi-menu, I get

[root@glados ~]# wifi-menu
   > No such interface: wlan0

That is all I've got.

Trilby · 2012-12-09 01:50:34

That card can use wl, but in my (limited) experience wl can cause as many problems as it solves. B43 works wonderfully though and should work for that card. Have you tried b43 yet?

If you need to use wl you should check the available interfaces. Sometimes wl creates the wireless interface but will call it eth1 instead of wlan0. You can check this with `ip a`.

ewaller · 2012-12-09 01:51:52

If you would, please post the output of:
ip link
and of
lsmod

cjohnson · 2012-12-09 01:56:24

Trilby wrote:

That card can use wl, but in my (limited) experience wl can cause as many problems as it solves. B43 works wonderfully though and should work for that card. Have you tried b43 yet?
If you need to use wl you should check the available interfaces. Sometimes wl creates the wireless interface but will call it eth1 instead of wlan0. You can check this with `ip a`.

I'll try b43 now. See results at end.
Here's ip a

[root@glados ~]# ip a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:24:e8:f1:50:69 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.2.4/24 brd 192.168.2.255 scope global eth0
    inet6 fe80::224:e8ff:fef1:5069/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

EDIT: ewaller: Here you go:

[spoiler]
[root@glados ~]# ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DEFAULT qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:24:e8:f1:50:69 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
[root@glados ~]# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
b43                   330839  0 
bcma                   23223  1 b43
mac80211              367308  1 b43
ssb                    43032  1 b43
mmc_core               73455  2 b43,ssb
pcmcia                 31186  2 b43,ssb
pcmcia_core            10242  1 pcmcia
fuse                   60479  2 
joydev                  7696  0 
snd_hda_codec_realtek    52472  1 
i915                  441149  3 
sr_mod                 13149  0 
cdrom                  30345  1 sr_mod
uvcvideo               63388  0 
dell_laptop             7920  0 
snd_hda_intel          22257  3 
snd_hda_codec          83678  2 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep               4843  1 snd_hda_codec
drm_kms_helper         28942  1 i915
snd_pcm                61958  2 snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
drm                   180117  4 i915,drm_kms_helper
snd_page_alloc          5870  2 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel
snd_timer              14903  1 snd_pcm
snd                    45098  12 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
coretemp                4959  0 
i2c_i801                8464  0 
videobuf2_vmalloc       1897  1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_memops        1623  1 videobuf2_vmalloc
videobuf2_core         20881  1 uvcvideo
lib80211                3102  0 
acpi_cpufreq            5142  1 
mperf                   1024  1 acpi_cpufreq
psmouse                71891  0 
compal_laptop           8479  0 
videodev               79257  2 uvcvideo,videobuf2_core
r8169                  49144  0 
iTCO_wdt                4316  0 
iTCO_vendor_support     1546  1 iTCO_wdt
mii                     3440  1 r8169
media                   8546  2 uvcvideo,videodev
cfg80211              153457  2 b43,mac80211
pcspkr                  1456  0 
usb_storage            36953  0 
intel_agp               8593  1 i915
uas                     8888  0 
intel_gtt              12212  3 i915,intel_agp
processor              24040  1 acpi_cpufreq
i2c_algo_bit            4584  1 i915
serio_raw               3714  0 
lpc_ich                 9214  0 
agpgart                21936  3 drm,intel_agp,intel_gtt
soundcore               4379  1 snd
i2c_core               16944  6 drm,i915,i2c_i801,drm_kms_helper,i2c_algo_bit,videodev
microcode               8922  0 
rfkill                 12569  3 cfg80211,compal_laptop
dcdbas                  4309  1 dell_laptop
battery                 5214  0 
ac                      1893  0 
thermal                 6660  0 
button                  3711  1 i915
video                   9885  1 i915
evdev                   7663  11 
ext4                  402657  1 
crc16                   1092  1 ext4
jbd2                   66384  1 ext4
mbcache                 4387  1 ext4
sd_mod                 27312  2 
ata_generic             2435  0 
pata_acpi               2400  0 
uhci_hcd               19809  0 
ata_piix               19705  1 
libata                146129  3 pata_acpi,ata_generic,ata_piix
ehci_hcd               36653  0 
scsi_mod              113073  5 uas,usb_storage,libata,sd_mod,sr_mod
usbcore               126764  5 uas,uhci_hcd,uvcvideo,usb_storage,ehci_hcd
usb_common               623  1 usbcore
[/spoiler]

After b43, nothing changed from above. Do I need to reload something?

ewaller · 2012-12-09 02:06:22

I've a hunch you are missing the b43 firmware. Have you installed b43-firmware from the AUR?

cjohnson · 2012-12-09 02:11:32

ewaller wrote:

I've a hunch you are missing the b43 firmware. Have you installed b43-firmware from the AUR?

Downloading now...
Downloaded and installed. I still don't have a new interface. I'll restart and be back.

EDIT: I'm back. I restarted and I had an eth1 interface, so I ran wifi-menu eth1 and got set up. Now, how do I get the wifi menu in GNOME?

Last edited by cjohnson (2012-12-09 02:16:58)

10PinkPanther · 2012-12-09 02:35:02

You must install b43-fwcutter.I have this same card and it it works perfect with b43,b43-fwcutter and b43-firmware.

cjohnson · 2012-12-09 02:39:47

10PinkPanther wrote:

You must install b43-fwcutter.I have this same card and it it works perfect with b43,b43-fwcutter and b43-firmware.

I ran makepgk with the -s option, so it automatically installed those dependancies for me. Thank you for posting that, though.

10PinkPanther · 2012-12-09 02:49:55

No problem.

ewaller · 2012-12-09 04:10:30

I am afraid I cannot help you with Gnome. What is the output of sudo iwlist scan ??

Jristz · 2012-12-09 06:00:44

GNOME use networkmanager right?
networkmanager relly on wlan0 for wifi right?
if you wlan become eth1 whi not or use a udev rulle that make the device with the MAC addres of you-wirelles-car become the wlan0 ?

cjohnson · 2012-12-10 00:28:18

ewaller: Nevermind, I figured it out. I had to run sudo NetworkManager for it to come up, not nm-applet
jristz: No, it's fine. eth1 works.

cjohnson · 2013-01-02 00:01:07

Related and new problem: I got myself a shiny new wi-fi card for Christmas, but it doesn't even show up when I run $ lspci -vnn
I don't think I zapped it with static electricity, and it is the upgraded (bgn) version of the card currently in the computer, so why wouldn't it work? I even checked to make sure that I connected everything correctly. It was exactly like the old card. Any ideas?

ewaller · 2013-01-02 00:25:11

Just a sanity check ... the card does have a PCI (or PCIe) interface, right? On other words, it does not use a USB interface?

cjohnson · 2013-01-02 21:43:32

It is the upgraded model of the card currently in the computer. The only difference is that it supports the 802.11n standard as opposed to just 802.11b/g. I can give you model numbers if you want.

cjohnson · 2013-01-02 21:53:13

Its a Broadcom BCM94322HM8L. There are a bunch of other numbers, but I'm not sure what any of the other ones are, aside from the MAC address.

Gusar · 2013-01-02 22:43:01

Some laptops have a hardware whitelist. If a device isn't on that list, it won't work.

cjohnson · 2013-01-02 22:46:15

I did a little bit of research and found out that it does work with the b43 driver (and wl), so I wasn't doing that wrong, but it still stands that it doesn't show up on $lspci -vnn. Also, it isn't a USB card.

EDIT: Gusar: Where is that whitelist? I think Dell ships used to ship this card as an upgrade option for the laptop. It should be on that whitelist in that event.

EDIT 2: Also, can it be edited?

EDIT 3: It can be edited, however, I have no idea how to do it. The 'net wasn't very helpful. Also, I just noticed that there was an a in front of the b/g/n. It isn't the card Dell ships, and it most likely isn't on the whitelist. F*ck. Can someone help me edit/remove my BIOS whitelist so I can use this card? I'm really ticked because this is the second time I've purchased hardware for my computer and it has rejected it because of a tiny error I made. I really want to use this card because I can't believe I bought it and it decided to not work.

Last edited by cjohnson (2013-01-02 23:24:11)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-12-09 01:26:18

[REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#2 2012-12-09 01:34:04

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#3 2012-12-09 01:45:06

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#4 2012-12-09 01:50:34

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#5 2012-12-09 01:51:52

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#6 2012-12-09 01:56:24

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#7 2012-12-09 02:06:22

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#8 2012-12-09 02:11:32

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#9 2012-12-09 02:35:02

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#10 2012-12-09 02:39:47

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#11 2012-12-09 02:49:55

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#12 2012-12-09 04:10:30

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#13 2012-12-09 06:00:44

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#14 2012-12-10 00:28:18

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#15 2013-01-02 00:01:07

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#16 2013-01-02 00:25:11

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#17 2013-01-02 21:43:32

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#18 2013-01-02 21:53:13

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#19 2013-01-02 22:43:01

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

#20 2013-01-02 22:46:15

Re: [REOPENED]Dell Inspiron 1011 Wifi not creating interface(BCM4312 chip)

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