Problems with broadcom wlan adapter and wlan-button.

punakuono · 2007-11-25 08:55:42

I've got a laptop (HP Compaq 6715S), which has an integrated wlan adapter (broadcom 4311/4312?). A couple of weeks ago the adapter was working ok with ndiswrapper and bcmwl5.inf driver, but it stopped working recently probably after ndiswrapper and/or kernel upgrade. Loading the ndiswrapper module from rc.conf made the whole system kernel panic (IRQ problem?) until I added:

acpi=noirq

to the kernel boot parameters. Now this error doesn't occur every time I load ndiswrapper, but the problem still exists. BCM43xx driver doesn't work either. I'm using the 64-bit arch.

in my rc.conf I have:
-------------------------

MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes"
MOD_BLACKLIST=(pcspkr joydev bcm43xx bluetooth hci_usb pcmcia yenta_socket pcmcia_core)

MODULES=(fglrx ieee80211 ieee80211softmac ieee80211_crypt ieee80211_crypt_wep ieee80211_crypt_tkip
ieee80211_crypt_ccmp powernow-k8 k8temp thermal fan battery button cpufreq_powersave cpufreq_ondemand
freq_table)
# Scan for LVM volume groups at startup, required if you use LVM
USELVM="no"
---------------------------------
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng dbus laptop-mode acpid cpufreq @alsa network wicd gdm)

lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (Internal gfx)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 7914
00:05.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 7915
00:06.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (PCI Express Port 2)
00:12.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2)
00:13.3 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3)
00:13.4 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4)
00:13.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 14)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series]
02:04.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b6)
10:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
30:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g (rev 02)

dmesg |grep ndis (after error)

ndiswrapper version 1.49 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=yes)
ndiswrapper (link_pe_images:576): fixing KI_USER_SHARED_DATA address in the driver
ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,10/12/2006, 4.100.15.5) loaded
Modules linked in: ndiswrapper snd_seq_oss snd_seq_midi_event snd_seq snd_seq_device snd_pcm_oss
snd_mixer_oss container tsdev rtc_cmos rtc_core rtc_lib serio_raw evdev psmouse i2c_piix4 i2c_core ehci_hcd
ohci_hcd shpchp pci_hotplug cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_powersave k8temp ieee80211_crypt_ccmp
ieee80211_crypt_tkip ieee80211_crypt_wep ieee80211softmac ieee80211 ieee80211_crypt fglrx(P) usbcore tg3
snd_hda_intel snd_pcm snd_timer snd_page_alloc snd_hwdep snd soundcore ac button battery fan sbs thermal
video output powernow_k8 freq_table processor ext3 jbd mbcache sd_mod sr_mod cdrom sg ahci ata_generic
pata_atiixp libata
 [<ffffffff88405e77>] :ndiswrapper:win2lin2+0xe/0x11
 [<ffffffff883fa330>] :ndiswrapper:IoAcquireCancelSpinLock+0x10/0x20
 [<ffffffff883fae47>] :ndiswrapper:IofCompleteRequest+0x87/0x180
 [<ffffffff883fc4d2>] :ndiswrapper:pdoDispatchPnp+0x52/0x490
 [<ffffffff88400c08>] :ndiswrapper:mp_init+0xa8/0x1e0
 [<ffffffff883fa5f4>] :ndiswrapper:IofCallDriver+0x34/0xc0
 [<ffffffff883fb930>] :ndiswrapper:IoSyncForwardIrp+0x90/0xd0
 [<ffffffff88400e1b>] :ndiswrapper:NdisDispatchPnp+0xdb/0xee0
 [<ffffffff883fb1db>] :ndiswrapper:IoInitializeIrp+0x3b/0x70
 [<ffffffff88405e77>] :ndiswrapper:win2lin2+0xe/0x11
 [<ffffffff883fa5f4>] :ndiswrapper:IofCallDriver+0x34/0xc0
 [<ffffffff883fa61f>] :ndiswrapper:IofCallDriver+0x5f/0xc0
 [<ffffffff883fa330>] :ndiswrapper:IoAcquireCancelSpinLock+0x10/0x20
 [<ffffffff883fa5f4>] :ndiswrapper:IofCallDriver+0x34/0xc0
 [<ffffffff883fb6bf>] :ndiswrapper:IoBuildSynchronousFsdRequest+0x2f/0x50
 [<ffffffff883fc9fc>] :ndiswrapper:IoSendIrpTopDev+0xac/0x100
 [<ffffffff883fccff>] :ndiswrapper:pnp_start_device+0x4f/0xa0
 [<ffffffff883fcf6f>] :ndiswrapper:wrap_pnp_start_device+0x21f/0x260
 [<ffffffff883fd000>] :ndiswrapper:wrap_pnp_start_pci_device+0x50/0x60
 [<ffffffff883ef04c>] :ndiswrapper:loader_init+0x13c/0x260
 [<ffffffff883700b7>] :ndiswrapper:wrapper_init+0xb7/0xc3

The other problem that I have is the wlan-button: The wlan adapter isn't always turned on at boot and I have found no way to turn it on from linux. It can be turned on by booting to windows or resetting the bios to defaults, but it is not very nice. I've noticed that pressing the wlan button adds one usb device:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 03f0:171d Hewlett-Packard

Is there a way to fix these problems?

lenni · 2007-11-25 09:48:42

When I used to use ndiswrapper, just downloading one of the generic INF files didn't do the trick for me. I had to go to my manufacturer's homepage and download it there extract the drivers from the exe and use them in order to get my card work reliably.

Also, have you used a 64 bit driver? This guy reckons you need it:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions … ost2952703

punakuono · 2007-11-25 10:34:40

lenni wrote:

When I used to use ndiswrapper, just downloading one of the generic INF files didn't do the trick for me. I had to go to my manufacturer's homepage and download it there extract the drivers from the exe and use them in order to get my card work reliably.
Also, have you used a 64 bit driver? This guy reckons you need it:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions … ost2952703

I guess I solved it. I have been using the 64-bit driver, but have tried the 32-bit driver from hp diver site too. For some reason ndiswrapper seems to install a driver named "ndiswrapper" with this 32-bit driver, which is why it didn't work. So my solution was:
1) Get the 32-bit driver from hp.com
2) rmmod ndiswrapper
3) remove all installed ndiswrapper drivers: ndiswrapper -r <drivername>
4) installed the 32-bit driver: ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
5) ndiswrapper -l gave me:

bcmwl5 : driver installed
        device (14E4:4312) present (alternate driver: bcm43xx)
ndiswrapper : invalid driver!

6) Got rid of the weird ndiswrapper driver inside ndiswrapper: ndiswrapper -r ndiswrapper
7) modprobe ndiswrapper

Rebooted a couple of times and it seems to work ok.
How about the wlan-button problem?

punakuono · 2007-11-26 14:06:48

I was wrong!
It still deosn't work. Tried it today at school, but it either didn't find any networks or couldn't connect to any of them. So problem is now different. I'm gonna try other (older) windows drivers with ndiswrapper and post the results here (if I get any).

punakuono · 2007-12-11 06:28:48

Installed 32-bit arch on the side and wlan works flawlessly, so it is definitely arch46-related. I think it stopped working after I updated kernel to 2.6.23.8 and the problem is not fixed in 2.6.23.9, but I'm not sure. I keep arch64 installed and test it once in a while to see if it has been fixed. Right now I would recommend 32-bit arch for anyone who owns this laptop, because arch64 just isn't working good enough.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-11-25 08:55:42

Problems with broadcom wlan adapter and wlan-button.

#2 2007-11-25 09:48:42

Re: Problems with broadcom wlan adapter and wlan-button.

#3 2007-11-25 10:34:40

Re: Problems with broadcom wlan adapter and wlan-button.

#4 2007-11-26 14:06:48

Re: Problems with broadcom wlan adapter and wlan-button.

#5 2007-12-11 06:28:48

Re: Problems with broadcom wlan adapter and wlan-button.

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