Arch Linux

whitethorn

Member

Registered: 2010-05-02

Posts: 153

wireless fn key no longer working. Wireless card blocked at Start.

Hi,

I have an Acer Aspire One 721.  The wireless card is listed below.  Since my laptop has only a single CPU I have been using the brcm80211 driver. I used to be able to Fn+F3 to get wireless to off and on and that doesn't work anymore.  At first I thought my card wasn't working at all, but iwconfig listed wlan0.  I found out that my card was being blocked at boot and still is.  I installed rfkill and here's the output after unblocking it.  Unfortunately with the brcm80211 driver when I unblock the card it no longer turns on the wireless LED.  I installed broadcom-wl package from AUR just to see if there's a difference. When I use the wl driver it turns the LED on but the Fn key combo doesn't work either. Is there a way to get the Fn + F3 combination to work again? I think I might try downgrading the kernel and see if that's the problem.  If that doesn't help is there a better solution to unblocking the device than using rfkill in /etc/rc.local?

$ lspci
...
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications AR8151 v1.0 Gigabit Ethernet (rev c0)
06:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43225 802.11b/g/n (rev 01)

$ rfkill unblock 1
$ rfkill list
0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: yes
    Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

Will post back with results after kernel downgrade.

[UPDATE]

Tried to downgrade the kernel, the computer kept locking forcing a reboot shortly after logging in.

Last edited by whitethorn (2011-04-12 22:10:36)

saschakb

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-04-12

Posts: 7

Website

Re: wireless fn key no longer working. Wireless card blocked at Start.

Hi whitethorn,

months ago, I installed openfwwf from AUR. With that firmware, there is no need to load anymore drivers via /etc/rc.conf or whatever, Everything is already in the newer kernels (2.6.37, 2.6.38, 2.6.39). But: the kernel drivers don't turn on the wifi LED anymore and your wlan will switch from eth0, eth1, whatever it is, to wlan0.

whitethorn

Member

Registered: 2010-05-02

Posts: 153

Re: wireless fn key no longer working. Wireless card blocked at Start.

Hi whitethorn,

months ago, I installed openfwwf from AUR. With that firmware, there is no need to load anymore drivers via /etc/rc.conf or whatever, Everything is already in the newer kernels (2.6.37, 2.6.38, 2.6.39). But: the kernel drivers don't turn on the wifi LED anymore and your wlan will switch from eth0, eth1, whatever it is, to wlan0.

Yeah that pretty much happened, I guess I could live without the LED or switch to broadcom-wl.  I would really like it to get the Fn + F3 combination working again. I guess I could use rfkill to block/unblock the interface...