[SOLVED] Wi-Fi on Compaq 615, Broadcom BCM4312

SebN · 2014-07-13 01:51:30

I've been struggling for the past few hours to get Wi-Fi to work on my Compaq 615. After thoroughly following the Broadcom wireless guide the device still failed to show up on lspci. The PCI-ID / Chip ID is 14e4:4315 / BCM4312.

Then suddenly after restoring the BIOS defaults it showed up. This was only temporary however as a reboot made it disappear once again.

The lsmod diff showed a couple of differences in modules -- reloading BIOS added the modules bluetooth, btusb, ecb and lib80211_crypt_tkip. I tried adding them to my module-load.d/wl.conf without any noticable changes after rebooting.

rfkill list results:

Before BIOS reset:

0: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: yes
  Hard blocked: no
...

After BIOS reset:

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: yes
  Hard blocked: no
...

Now for the really odd part; if I run 'sudo rfkill unblock wifi' in the faulty state (without the device showing up on lspci), arch will start to output code in the terminal with terms such as add_worker, manage_workers, process, eventually freeze, then crash. After forcing a shutdown by holding down the power button, the next boot will provide working Wi-Fi drivers. Even more mysteriously, the rfkill unblock crash results in working drivers for one(?) additional reboot then disappears again. Forcing a shutdown by pressing the power button without crashing the system through rfkill unblock does not solve the device issue.

This really boggles my mind as a new Arch Linux (and Linux for that matter) user. I really can't wrap my head around what is going on. Although I've gotten my Wi-Fi to work, there's got to be a more efficient solution to my problem.

Thank you.

Last edited by SebN (2014-07-13 18:43:39)

Rexilion · 2014-07-13 09:07:17

Perhaps also compare the contents of the output of the 'dmesg' command?

What surprises me is the different modules being loaded after a bios reset.

I suggest you provide some output of dmesg after
- a bios reset
- after a faulty state
- after a forced 'good' state

We can use some regex magic and diff to compare them.

SebN · 2014-07-13 10:18:27

I posted the dmesg outputs to my github: https://github.com/seb-nyberg/dmesg

Hopefully the regex magic can detect some abnormality!

By the way, I've noticed that the Wi-Fi working after a reboot is a result of unblocking it, not really related to crashing the computer. So, right now I could keep Wi-Fi working by making sure its unblocked at shutdown.

Rexilion · 2014-07-13 13:42:05

I did some quick scrolling:

dmesg_bios_reset + dmesg_forced_state uniquely contains

pci 0000:06:00.0: [14e4:4315] type 00 class 0x028000
pci 0000:06:00.0: reg 0x10: [mem 0x92000000-0x92003fff 64bit]
pci 0000:06:00.0: supports D1 D2

INFO @wl_cfg80211_attach : Registered CFG80211 phy
lib80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'TKIP'
eth0: Broadcom BCM4315 802.11 Hybrid Wireless Controller 6.30.223.141 (r415941)

wl 0000:06:00.0: no hotplug settings from platform (a lot...)

dmesg_bios_reset uniquely contains

pci_bus 0000:01: hash matches

dmesg_faulty uniquely contains

hp_wmi: query 0x5 returned error 0xea74

You could consider blacklisting the HP WMI module. And maybel try to disable some virtualization options in your BIOS. I suggest you try these two options one by one. And, of course, try the other option *after* reverting the first one back to it's initial state.

SebN · 2014-07-13 18:42:28

Blacklisting the hp_wmi module did the trick. rfkill now only shows the phy device but that doesn't really matter.

In case someone googles this issue later on -- I am using the broadcom-wl-dkms AUR package which automatically adds a blacklist conf to /etc/modprobe.d/. All I had to do was to add blacklist hp_wmi and things worked out great!

Thanks Rexilion

Rexilion · 2014-07-13 20:02:20

Why are you using an out of tree kernel module?

I googled your model, I think the native b43 driver should work

I also saw some hits about overheating problems. You might want to keep an eye on any temp sensors. However, this could not be related to Linux, but perhaps to bad/aging hardware??

Arch Linux

#1 2014-07-13 01:51:30

[SOLVED] Wi-Fi on Compaq 615, Broadcom BCM4312

#2 2014-07-13 09:07:17

Re: [SOLVED] Wi-Fi on Compaq 615, Broadcom BCM4312

#3 2014-07-13 10:18:27

Re: [SOLVED] Wi-Fi on Compaq 615, Broadcom BCM4312

#4 2014-07-13 13:42:05

Re: [SOLVED] Wi-Fi on Compaq 615, Broadcom BCM4312

#5 2014-07-13 18:42:28

Re: [SOLVED] Wi-Fi on Compaq 615, Broadcom BCM4312

#6 2014-07-13 20:02:20

Re: [SOLVED] Wi-Fi on Compaq 615, Broadcom BCM4312

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